
Class 

Book * 

CopyrightN°__ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 



Church of the Fathers. 



A History of Christianity from 
Clement to Gregory. 

(A.D. ioo-A.D. 600.) 



By ROBERT THOMAS KERLIN. 



"Tke darkness overcame it not." 

— Gospel of John. 



Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas, Tex.: 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South. 

Barbee & Smith, Agents. 



(THE LiiRARY OF 
Two Copies Received 

JAN. 4 1902 

^GOPVWGHT ENTRV 

CllASS CU XXa No. 

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copy a 



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Copyrighted, 1901, 
By Barbee & Smith, Agents. 



(«) 



DEDICATION. 

Having some years ago inscribed a little volume of 
song — the best that was then mine of poetic thought 
and feeling to the memory of my first and ever- 
CHERISHED Mother, I dedicate this more serious effort, 

WITH FILIAL REGARD, TO MY SECOND MOTHER, THE EVER- 
NOURISHING MOTHER OF SCIENCES AND ARTS, CENTRAL COL- 
LEGE, Fayette, Mo. The Author. 

(Hi) 



*Oirep kcrlv kv 06/uaTi ipvxy, rovf elalv ev k6o}il> XptffTiavoi.— Epis- 
tle TO DlOGNETUS. 

"ylSterna Sapientia, sese in omnibus rebus, maxime in humana 
mente, omnium maxime in Christu Jesu manifestavit." — Spinoza. 
(iv) 



PREFACE. 

A twofold aim has governed the writer of this 
book. He has desired, first, to awaken interest in 
the early post-apostolic history of the Church, to 
open this rich field to new searchers after knowl- 
edge, and to be a guide to them to the mines of 
purest wealth. In the second place, he has sought 
to bring some shining nuggets from this far-off 
and dim region, with the hope that here and there 
a soul, athirst for true riches, may be induced to 
journey thither to behold those mountains whence 
he gathered the only precious things he has to dis- 
play. In plain language, he has culled sayings full 
of perpetual wisdom from the writings of immortal 
but unknown men; from heroic, good, and wise 
men, whose names have become dim in the news- 
paper age of the world ; but men wholly worthy to 
be called saints, philosophers, fathers. Avoiding 
as much as possible all abstruse discussions of doc- 
trine, and writing as a layman for the laity, he has 
told the story of the Church in the lives of illustri- 
ous men, and brought them, not seldom, to speak 
for themselves in passages of such moral beauty 
and such intrinsic eloquence as the literature of 
the world may rival, possibly, but not surpass. 

Professing himself to have been for many years 
a diligent student of this determinative and mar- 

(v) 



vi Pre/add. 

velously fruitful age of the Church, interested in 
every phenomenon of its life as no insignificant 
thing in its time and import, yet he has not been, 
he trusts, so fond an historian of ideas and usages 
as to cause every burial ground of the past to yield 
up its entire host of forgotten and impertinent dead. 
The life that has been transmitted; the breathing 
and embodied doctrines wherein was and is life and 
power ; the heroic and undying souls wherein the 
Word that is eternal spoke ; the growing institution ; 
the Christian conquest of the world — these are the 
things that have mainly engaged the thoughts of the 
writer of this book. 

Let him add to the mottoes already presented to 
the reader this one from St. Paul, as of supreme 
usefulness in all study and practice: " Prove all 
things; hold fast that which is good." 

R. T. K. 

Marshall, Mo.,/««g, 1901. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
Introduction. _„ 

PAGE 

History the enlightener — The interest attaching to begin- 
nings — Review of the Period — Principle of estimating 
men and things; their serviceableness to their own age 
— Sources of knowledge: writings of the Fathers; the 
fourth and fifth century historians, Eusebius, Socrates, 
Sozomen, and Theodoret — Aim and spirit of this present 
undertaking; knowledge of Christian history — Culture 
in Christian truths i 

CHAPTER II. 
The Apostolic Fathers. 
Their importance: historical; ethical — The men and their 
works: Clement of Rome; Ignatius of Antioch; Poly- 
carp of Smyrna; Hermas, the Didache; the Epistle to 
Diognetus; miscellaneous writings — Character and value 
of these early documents 13 

CHAPTER III. 
The Apologists. 
Greek philosophers converted to Christianity — Employed 
Hellenic culture in defense of the gospel — Their achieve- 
ment; the founding of Christian theology, or a philoso- 
phy of Christianity — Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Apol- 
linaris, Miltiades, Athenagoras, Justin Martyr, Tatian, 
Theophilus, Felix Maximus, Tertullian, Origen; Exposi- 
tion of Justin Martyr as representative — Summary 35 

CHAPTER IV. 
The School of Alexandria. 
The City : cosmopolitan in culture ; free in religious thought 
— Philonism — Neoplatonism — The Catechetical School — 

Clement ; Origen 53 

(vii) 



viii Contents. 

CHAPTER V. 
Early Heresies and the Formation of a Canon. 
How the question of a canon of Scriptures arose; diver- 
gencies in doctrine gave rise to need of a rule of faith 
(kclvgjv) — Ebionism — Gnosticism — Monarchianism — The 
formation of a canon, or body of authoritative documents, 
a gradual process ...... 8 1 

CHAPTER VI. 
Ecclesiastical Organization. 
Growth: stages traceable ; causes — Priestly orders and their 
functions: bishops, presbyters, deacons, etc. — Roman 
empire the pattern of the Church — The rise of Rome to 
supremacy: favoring conditions; causes and stages — 
Opposition to growing priestcraft — Montanism ; Monas- 
ticism 103 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Church and the Empire. 
Persecutions — Attitude of the empire toward religions; to- 
ward Christianity — Why the Christians were persecuted 
— The Church's condition from Nero, A.D . 54, to Diocle- 
tian, A.D. 311 — The catacombs: the underground age 
of Christianity — Constantine the Great: Christianity on 
the imperial throne 117 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Arian Controversy. 
Freedom from danger without; foes within — Streams of 
thought — Monarchianism; two wings — Arianism — Rise 
— Attempts at settlement — The First Ecumenical Coun- 
cil: character; work; results — Varying party fortunes— 
Arius and Athanasius 145 

CHAPTER IX. 
Great Men of the East. 
The epoch one of eminent men — The three Cappadocians, 
Basil, Gregory of Nazianzum, Gregory of Nyssa; Chrys- 
ostom 1 73 



Contents. ix 

CHAPTER X. 
Great Men of the West. pAGE 

Ambrose — Jerome — Augustine 201 

CHAPTER XI. 
Worship, Ritual, and Observances. 
Houses of worship — Symbolism — Overthrow of paganism 
— Reaction — Julian the Apostate — Pagan survivals in 
Christianity; numerous; reasonable — Hymnology; ear- 
liest Christian usage — Chief hymn-writers of the period 
— Liturgies and festivals — Saints, relics, and miracles; 
the gradual corruption of the pure religion 227 

CHAPTER XII. 

MONASTICISM. 

Origin, spirit, and aim — A feature of various other reli- 
gions — Early Christian hermits in Egypt — Spread — Ra- 
tionale, and conditions producing Monasticism — The 
barbarian invasion— Visigoths, Huns, Vandals — Service 
of Monasticism — Benedict of Nursia and his order — 
Planting of Christianity in Germany, Gaul, and Britain.. 251 

CHAPTER XIII. 
The Pelagian Controversy. 
Origin — Outbreak — Pelagius, Synods — Teachings of Pela- 
gius — Estimate of the opposing doctrines 275 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Councils and Creeds. 
Remarks upon the period — Spirit of fairness in judging of 
the Church's work — The first five Ecumenical Councils: 
of Nicsea, of Constantinople, of Ephesus, of Chalcedon, 
of Constantinople (second) — The various controversies 
which occasioned them — Creeds: attempted exclusions 
of heresies by strict definitions of the faith ; the Nicene, 
the Apostles', the Athanasian 303 



J 



x Contents. 

CHAPTER XV. 
Gregory the Great — Conclusion. pAGE 
Significance of great men — Preparation of Gregory for 
eminence — Kinds of service he rendered the Church — 
Consolidation and enforcement of conformity — One pe- 
riod of Church nistory closed — Conclusion 325 

Appendix I.: Chief Authors and Their Chief Works 339 

Appendix II. : Table of Emperors 345 

Select Bibliography xi 



SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



History of the Christian Church, Dr. Philip Schaff. Scribners. 
Encyclopedic, filled with pregnant comment, characterized 
by breadth of spirit and largeness of aim. 

History of Latin Christianity . H. H. Mil man. "Standard Edi- 
tion "in four volumes. Armstrong and Son, New York. Al- 
most epical, full of learning and of eloquence, written in the 
finest spirit of ripe scholarship and broad sympathies. 

Christian History. J. H. Allen. Three volumes. Roberts 
Brothers, Boston. An interesting narration from a human- 
istic point of view, and dealing with salient forces and chief 
men. 

History of Christian Doctrine. G. P. Fisher. In the "Interna- 
tional Theological Library." An excellent comprehensive 
volume. 

Christian Institutions. A. V. G. Allen. Another volume of the 
" International Theological Library." Admirably written. 

Manual of Patrology. W. N. Stearns, Ph.D. Scribners. An 
invaluable handbook that gives a " concise account of the 
chief persons, sects, orders, etc., in Christian history from 
the first century to the Reformation." 

Library of the Fathers. Edited by Dr. Schaff. Thirty-six vol- 
umes. This library contains the most important writings of 
the Fathers of the first six centuries. It is the storehouse 
of knowledge for all historians. 

The Fathers for English Reader s, edited by G. A. Jackson, is an 
excellent series of brief monographs, including the follow- 
ing: "The Apostolic Fathers," "The Defenders of the 
Faith," "Clement of Alexandria," "Saint Athanasius," 
" Saint Ambrose," " Saint Gregory," " Saint Basil," " Saint 
Jerome," " Saint Augustine," " Leo the Great," " Saint Pat- 
rick," " Gregory the Great." Price each, 80 cents. 

(xi) 



THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

" For neither is there life without knowledge nor sound 
knowledge without true life." — Epistle to Diognetus. 

The present cannot be understood, nor the fu- 
ture conjectured, without a knowledge of the past. 
The simplest institutions among us are a heritage 
from an antiquity hoary as that of the pyramids. 
Being the embodiment of ideas and purposes cre- 
ated by the growing mind of man, they have de- 
veloped in accordance with the laws of his nature 
and in response to his varying needs, taking, slow- 
ly but surely, the characteristic features of the 
aims and ideals of each succeeding age, all the 
while, through all transformations, subject to an 
underlying principle which preserves their identi- 
ty. To build wisely we must know the architec- 
tural plan, the original conception; and this can 
be discovered only by a careful study of the foun- 
dations and a survey of the rising structure. This 
knowledge as regards the edifice called society, or 
civilization — this cathedral which is always build- 
ing, never finished — is derived from a study of 
history. The laws of development to which fu- 
ture efforts must conform are to be discovered in 
the records of events and made the common pos- 
session of all ; for all have, in various degrees, a de- 
termining influence upon progress. Knowledge 



2 The Church of the Fathers. 

of history makes this influence an enlightened, 
conservative, forwarding one. The long look 
ahead can be obtained only by getting the bear- 
ings and line of general direction from the past 
course of advance. The past is all prophetic; 
the future lies in the womb of the present. 

All origins are interesting. The account of all 
development is philosophy in the concrete. The 
history of institutions, of their rise and growth, 
their functions and purposes, is one of the most 
instructive, broadening, and liberalizing studies 
that can occupy the mind. Preeminent among 
human institutions are those which spring out of 
man's religious nature. The central fact of his 
being is his religion ; worship is his most univer- 
sal trait and most fundamental instinct. Wherever 
he has built him a house in w r hich to dwell, he has 
reared him a temple in which to pray and adore. 
All the facts and phenomena of man's life, social 
and individual, order themselves about religion as 
a determining principle. The nature of man is per- 
manently and prevailingly religious. 

Therefore no institutions are more interesting 
to study in their rise, development, functions, and 
influences — all that make up history — than those 
most immediately embodying the religious idea. 
Chief among these for us is the Christian Church, 
This history we purpose to outline, and its signifi- 
cance to indicate, in a few brief chapters, only de- 
signing to win our readers to a recognition of the 
supreme importance of the subject and to direct 



Introduction. 3 

them in the way of a systematic and thorough study 
in the books of the great historians. 

Where shall we begin? The true starting place 
is indeed not this side of Abraham, the father of 
the faithful and the founder of the congregation of 
Israel. But our purpose hardly requires an ac- 
count ab ovo ; though no student of Church history 
should fail to inform himself as regards the teach- 
ings and manner of service in vogue successively 
in the tabernacle, the temple, and the synagogue. 
The Church stands, in line of development, the 
successor of these. Conforming to the prevalent 
usage, and without any open hostility to the estab- 
lished order, Jesus taught and the apostles preached 
in the synagogues of their nation. It was inevita- 
ble that much in the way of ritual, polity, and doc- 
trine should be carried into the new society, how- 
ever radical seems the change to a simpler wor- 
ship and more ethical teaching. Can there be 
anything in common, it may be asked, between a 
Wesleyan chapel and a cathedral of the Church of 
England? Yes, more than a casual observer at 
first discerns. Whatever of ritual is found in the 
lowly chapel — and there must be some, and often 
is much — is derived from the stately cathedral. 
The Jewish synagogue is no less the mother of 
the Christian Church. The New Testament is not 
more truly the logical development of the Old, and 
Christianity not more the legitimate outcome of 
Judaism, than is the Church as an organization 
the offspring of the synagogue. The congrega- 



4 The Church of the Fathers. 

tion of the old dispensation becomes the ekklesta 
of the new. But for a full account of this matter 
the reader must go to Schiirer's " Jewish People 
in the Time of Christ" and Toy's "Judaism and 
Christianity." We pass over not only this impor- 
tant transition period, but also the New Testament 
times as well, and begin with the Church of the 
Apostolic Fathers. 

What may the reader expect in this history, and 
what are the inducements to its study? We have 
limited ourselves to the first six centuries following 
New Testament times — a period including what is 
commonly, but ignorantly, denominated the Dark 
Ages. Never in the history of human life was the 
human mind more actively engaged on problems 
of thought which required solution and on the 
framing of institutions which were necessary; 
never was there an age more abounding in moral 
enthusiasm and spiritual aspiration. Keen meta- 
physicians, bold speculators, prolific writers, elo- 
quent preachers, great ecclesiasts — Origen, Atha- 
nasius, and Chrysostom; Ambrose, Jerome, and 
Augustine; Leo and Gregory — belong to this pe- 
riod. It gave birth and direction to monasticism, 
one of the supreme religious movements of histo- 
ry. It was an era of Christian conquest of pagan- 
ism and barbarism, of assimilation, organization, 
and establishment. Creeds had to be formulated; 
doctrines had to be digested and developed into 
system; liturgies, ceremonies, and rituals, festi- 
vals and observances— for there is no Church with- 



Introduction. 5 

but these — had to be ordered and brought into serv- 
ice. 

It was an age of genius and achievements — not, 
it is true, in poetry or in any form of fine art, but 
in the treatment of theological problems and in the 
creation of fitting ecclesiastical institutions. The 
usefulness now, or absence of usefulness, of what 
the men of that time did, must not be taken as a 
measure of its usefulness then. In view of the 
conditions of those times and of the work that lay 
before the Church, the verdict of necessity must 
rest upon the general character and results of their 
activity. 

Within our survey shall come the literary con- 
flict with paganism; the persecutions which the 
Christians suffered at the hands of the Empire; 
their heroic deaths and wonderful triumphs over 
pain, and the winning of imperial power and final 
triumph over paganism; the missionary labors 
which resulted in the Christianization of Europe, 
the triumph over barbarism; the growth of eccle- 
siasticism and the origin of the papacy; the work 
of councils in the settlement of disputes, the pro- 
mulgation of canons and creeds, and the eradica- 
tion of heresies. The customs and manner of life, 
the great words and virtuous works, of believers 
will engage much of our attention. Examples of 
heroic fidelity to Christ, legends of beautiful lives, 
illustrations of the simplicity and sweetness of the 
disciples' trust in Christ, shall ennoble our pages. 
It will be a history of beginnings, which should al- 



6 The Church of the Fathers. 

ways be interesting; a history of great intellectual 
and moral conflicts and of illustrious men ; the his- 
tory of an institution still living and growing, an in- 
stitution without parallel in origin, in power, and in 
perpetuity; a history of the Church of Christ. 

The author, in writing this history, has first of 
all sought his information first-hand from the liter- 
ature of the times, of which he treats. He passes 
judgment on no book which he has not read, nor 
on any personage whose life and work he has not 
studied. The Fathers, as he wrote, were about 
him in his library. While modern authorities have 
not been neglected, the early historians of the 
Church — Eusebius, Socrates, Sozomen, and The- 
odoret— have been constantly by his side, his chief 
teachers. Of this group of historians it is befitting, 
since we shall have occasion hereafter frequently 
to refer to them, to give here some account. 

Eusebius, after St. Luke, was the first historian 
of the Church, and is chief of the early group in 
importance. He was bishop of Caesarea from 
about A.D. 313 until his death, about 337. His 
learning is accounted to be very great, and he was 
fortunate in having access, when he came to write 
his history of the Church, to the vast library which 
Origen had gotten together in Caesarea. He was 
an honored friend of Constantine, the first Chris- 
tian emperor; he was a distinguished member of 
the first Ecumenical Council, at Nicaea, in A.D. 
325; he was the father of Church history. The 
conception he had of his task is nobly expressed 



Introduction . 7 

in his own words: " Other writers of history," he 
says, "record the victories of war and trophies 
won from enemies, the skill of generals, and the 
manly bravery of soldiers, defiled with blood and 
with innumerable slaughters, for the sake of chil- 
dren and country and other possessions. But our 
narrative of the government of God will record in 
ineffaceable letters the most peaceful wars waged 
in behalf of the peace of the soul, and will tell of 
men doing brave deeds for truth rather than coun- 
try, and for piety rather than dearest friends. It 
will hand down to imperishable remembrance the 
discipline and the much-tried fortitude of the ath- 
letes of religion, the trophies won from demons, the 
victories over invisible enemies, and the crowns 
placed upon all their heads." 

His history, together with his "Life of Con- 
stantine,' ? covers the whole period of the Church 
from the beginning to the death of that emperor, 
A.D. 337. 

Socrates comes next in order of time. Born at 
Constantinople about A.D. 380, he wrote a full 
century after Eusebius, and, treating more fully of 
certain things, especially of the Arian controver- 
sy, than that author, he continued the history of 
the Church to the year 439. He was conscien- 
tious and careful in gathering information and im- 
partial in his treatment of the controversies. He 
had a wide acquaintance with Greek literature 
and was broad and liberal-minded. None the 
less did he have a high respect for the Church 



8 The Church of the Fathers. 

and her institutions, although he was no slave to 
formalism. 

Sozomen was born the same year with Socrates. 
He covered but a period of one hundred years 
(from 323 to 423) with his history. Being an ar- 
dent monk, he wrote to a great extent in the inter- 
ests of monasticism. He is uncritical and not 
very learned. His pages throng with accounts of 
visions, portents, and miracles. Yet he is a valu- 
able historian, especially as giving us an inside 
view of the mind of the age and of the great in- 
stitution of ascetics. 

Theodoret was born about A.D. 393 at Antioch, 
and lived all his life in the midst of the most heat- 
ed controversies. He was a scholar, familiar with 
the Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew languages. The 
greatest Antiochian theologians, a distinctly criti- 
cal school, were his teachers. In his history he is 
clear, concise, and veracious. He begins his nar- 
rative where Eusebius leaves off, and continues it 
over the space of one hundred and five years, i. e., 
to A.D. 429. His lofty words in setting forth the 
design of his history the present writer may humbly 
choose as his own : " When artists paint on panels 
and on walls the events of ancient history, they alike 
delight the eye and keep bright for many a year 
the memory of the past. Historians substitute 
books for panels, bright description for pigments, 
and thus render the memory of past events both 
stronger and more permanent, for the painter's 
art is ruined by time. For this reason I too shall 



Introduction . g 

attempt to record in writing events in ecclesiasti- 
cal history hitherto omitted, deeming it indeed 
not right to look on without an effort while obliv- 
ion robs noble deeds and useful stories of their 
due fame. For this cause* too, I have been fre- 
quently urged by friends to undertake this work. 
But when I compare my own powers with the 
magnitude of the undertaking, I shrink from at- 
tempting it. Trusting, however, in the bounty of 
the Giver of all good, I enter upon a task beyond 
my own strength." 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 



" The Apostolic Fathers are here understood as filling up the 
second century of our era. . . . We thus find ourselves 
conducted, by this goodly fellowship of witnesses, from the 
times of the apostles to those of Tertullian, from the martyrs 
of the second persecution to those of the sixth. Those were 
the times of heroism, not of words; an age, not of writers, 
but of soldiers; not of talkers, but of sufferers. Curiosity is 
baffled, but faith and love are fed by those scanty relics of 
primitive antiquity. Yet may we well be grateful for what 
we have. These writings come down to us as the earliest re- 
sponse of converted nations to the testimony of Jesus. They 
are primary evidences of the canon and the credibility of the 
New Testament. Disappointment may be the first emotion of 
the student who comes down from the mount where he has 
dwelt in the tabernacles of evangelists and apostles. . . . 
Yet the thoughtful and loving spirit soon learns their exceed- 
ing value. For who does not close the records of St. Luke 
with longings to get at least a glimpse of the further history of 
the progress of the gospel? What of the Church when its 
founders were fallen asleep? Was the Good Snepherd ' al- 
ways 7 with his little flock, according to his promise? Was the 
blessed Comforter felt in his presence amid the fires of perse- 
cution? Was the Spirit of Truth really able to guide the 
faithful unto all truth, and to keep them in the truth?" — A, 
Cleveland Coxe, Introduction to Vol. I. of "Ante-Nicene Fathers" 
(12) 



CHAPTER II. 

THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 
(second century.) 

" Viva vox usque hodie personans." — Papias. 

"The same [doctrines] commit thou to faithful men who 
shall be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) 

" In them [the Apostolic Fathers] we may discern the tenden- 
cies operating from the beginning which are to color the his- 
tory of the Church in all coming time." — A. V. G. Allen. 

Whoever would trace the growth of Christian 
usages and doctrines, and in any measure under- 
stand the history of the Church, must begin with 
the Apostolic Fathers. On other grounds, espe- 
cially because of their pure and high ethical ut- 
terances, they are well worthy of study. For the 
culture of the Christian life they stand close, not 
only in time but in power, to the writings of the 
very apostles themselves, their spiritual fathers. 
No theory of inspiration should cause us to be 
indifferent to this extra-biblical but thoroughly 
Christian literature, or to restrict our knowledge of 
Christian origins to the small volume of canonical 
writings, which scarcely bring us out of the first 
century. For historical information, if not for the 
higher spiritual uses, our interest in the Church of 
Christ and of the apostles should lead us to a 
study of the words and works, the lives and labors, 
of those who transmitted to us the influences and 
institutions of the founders. 

(^3) 



14 The Church of the Fathers 

Furthermore, the New Testament itself, giving 
evidence as it does of a supreme renaissance of 
the spirit, should lead us to expect some further 
contribution from the succeeding age to the reli- 
gious treasures of our race. Surely, one might 
say, this great movement — using the language of 
secular history — this unparalleled effort after mor- 
al reform and spiritual freedom, has not so quickly 
spent its force and ceased to bring forth illumi- 
nated men, and, through them, luminous records 
of the inspired life ? The Light of the World that 
enlightened the minds of those firstborn of the 
new era, can it have become suddenly extinct and 
left the infant Church, 

Crying in the night, 
An infant crying for the light, 
And with no language but a cry? 

Rather should we expect that the promised Spirit 
of Truth would be present, abiding with the be- 
lievers, and leading into a fuller comprehension of 
spiritual realities and a deeper experience of the 
faith, and causing them to produce a literature, if 
not worthy to be held sacred, yet u profitable for 
doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness "; or, as Jerome says of the 
Old Testament apocrypha, "for example of life 
and instruction of manners." 

We indeed find such a literature — as, truly, the 
known laws of the human spirit would teach us to 
expect; a literature so noble in tone, so lofty in 
ethical teaching, so breathing the spirit of the 



The Apostolic Fathers. 15 

Master, so animated by large thoughts and fer- 
vent emotions, that much of it was read for some 
generations in the churches equally with the writ- 
ings of the apostles themselves. Inspiration was 
claimed for it by the Fathers. 

The authors of this earliest literature imme- 
diately succeeding the New Testament are known 
as Apostolic Fathers. They were not apostles, but 
the apostles' spiritual children of the first genera- 
tion; that is, their immediate successors. They are 
to be distinguished from the "Church Fathers" 
as being included among the latter, as a species 
within a genus; for " Church Fathers " is a desig- 
nation applied to all the accepted Christian teach- 
ers of the first six or more centuries. 

The advantage of the Apostolic Fathers was very 
great. They received the sayings of our Lord 
first-hand from those who had heard his very 
voice and in their hearts had treasured up his pre- 
cious words. They had been quickened into new- 
ness of life by the holy zeal of those who had 
been for months and even years companions, night 
and day, of the Christ. They had been touched 
by the holy fire direct from the altar of God; 
they had drunk of the fountain of Life near its 
source. Should the power of this influence fail 
to manifest itself in their lives, their words, and 
their labors ? Could the stream of the river of God, 
"which is always full," bursting, as it were, from 
the cleft rock of Judaism, sink so soon in the des- 
ert sands of heathendom or paganism? The pre- 



1 6 The Church of the Fathers. 

supposition to the contrary is confirmed by the 
witness of their writings. Whoever will conceive 
a sufficient interest in the development of Chris- 
tianity to lead him to look into the writings of the 
Apostolic Fathers will find that they possess in large 
measure, if not undiminished, the moral fervor, 
the ethical aspiration, the spiritual illumination, 
even of the first great teachers. Some of their 
productions, as we shall see, were regarded for 
three or four centuries with as high esteem as the 
writings finally adopted into the sacred canon. 
The period of these Fathers coincides, generally 
speaking, with the first half of the second cen- 
tury; to speak more accurately, it may be said to 
lap over the third half-century of the Christian 
era about ten years at each end. A single volume 
of five hundred and seventy pages, a product of 
the ripe scholarship of Bishop Lightfoot, includes 
.all their writings, both the original Greek and the 
editor's translation, accompanied by brief intro- 
ductory notes. 

Of this literature I will give a brief account, and 
seek by the imperfect means of quotations to show 
what it is worth. 

i. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. 

This was written at Rome about A.D. 95, by 
St. Clement, to the church at Corinth, in order to 
heal a division there and to settle the question of 
authority in the church. There were two bitterly 
opposing parties, and the contention was about 



The Apostolic Fathers. 17 

the power of the elders. There had been a revo- 
lution in the church, and the presbyters had been 
deposed. It seems to have been a rebellion of the 
early spirit of freedom in respect to preaching, 
prophesying, worshiping, and living, against a 
growing orderliness and ecclesiasticism. Clem- 
ent, after the true Roman fashion, decides against 
the free spirit in favor of subordination, decorum, 
and order. The apostles, he writes, appointed 
bishops and deacons in every city where they 
preached, and to these gave authority ; they 
should be obeyed as God himself, inasmuch as 
their power comes to them through Christ and the 
apostles from him. This is a truly Roman con- 
ception, and the letter is important as showing 
how even in the first century the church at Rome 
was assuming an extensive oversight and author- 
ity. The natural order and government of the 
world serves to exemplify and teach how it should 
be in the Church. Pleadings as well as argu- 
ments are used by this great-hearted and wise 
head of the P^oman Church/ 

The past, by way of exhortation to unity and 
long-suffering, is brought before them in these 
words: "And ye were all lowly in mind and free 
from arrogance, yielding rather than claiming sub- 
mission, more glad to give than to receive, and 

1 In the half-shadow in which he remained, enveloped and, 
as it were, lost in the luminous dust of a fine historic distance, 
Clement is one of the great figures of a nascent Christianity. — 
Renan. 

2 



18 The Church of the Fathei's. 

content with the provisions which God supplieth. 
And giving heed unto his words, ye laid them up 
diligently in your hearts, and his sufferings were 
before your eyes. Thus a profound and rich 
peace was given to all, and an insatiable desire of 
doing good." The lessons of history, of God's 
mercies, and of Christ's sufferings are adduced in 
powerful arguments and appeals. The teachings 
of providence in nature, too, are invoked to the 
writer's aid in reclaiming the disrupted Church: 
"The heavens are moved by his direction, and 
obey him in peace. Day and night accomplish the 
course assigned to them, without hindrance one 
to another. The sun and the moon and the dan- 
cing stars, according to his appointment, circle in 
harmony within the bounds assigned to them, with- 
out any swerving aside." The depths of the abyss- 
es; the seasons which " give way in succession one 
to another in peace" ; the winds, which "fulfill their 
ministry without disturbance " ; " the ever-flowing 
fountains, created for enjoyment and health"; 
all these things the Creator and Master of the 
universe ordered to be in peace and concord, 
" doing good unto all things, but, far beyond the 
rest, unto us who have taken refuge in his com- 
passionate mercies." 

The contemplation of divine goodness, no less 
than of divine majesty, awakens exclamations of 
praise. "How blessed," he cries out, "how 
blessed and marvelous are the gifts of God, dear- 
ly beloved ! Life in immortality, splendor in 



The Apostolic Fathe7's. 19 

righteousness, truth in boldness, faith in confi- 
dence, temperance in sanctification ! " With max- 
ims of virtue and wise observations on the nature 
of things are mingled the noblest exhortations to 
worthy and harmonious living. The chief con- 
cern of teachers in the Church is still the conduct 
of life: " Let the wise," writes Clement, " display 
his wisdom not in words, but in good w r orks." 

2. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians. 

This also beai;s the name of Clement, but is not 
now attributed to him; nor is it an epistle, but a 
homily, the oldest extant homily of the Church. 
It was written between A.D. 120 and 140 by some 
author unknown. Noble throughout in moral 
teaching and exhortations to a lofty plane of liv- 
ing, the last paragraph is well worthy of being 
quoted entire: "Neither suffer ye this again to 
trouble your mind, that we see the unrighteous 
possessing wealth, and the servants of God strait- 
ened. Let us then have faith, brothers and sis- 
ters. We are contending in the lists of a living 
God; and we are trained by the present life, that 
we may be crowned with the future. No righteous 
man hath reaped fruit quickly, but waiteth for it. 
For if God had paid the recompense of the right- 
eous speedily, then straightway we should have 
been training ourselves in merchandise, and not 
in godliness; for we should seem to be righteous, 
though w r e were pursuing not that which is godly, 
but that which is gainful. And for this cause di- 



20 The Church of the Fathers. 

vine judgment overtaketh a spirit that is not just, 
and loadeth it with chains." 

3. The Epistles of Ignatius. 

These are seven letters written by St. Ignatius 
while on his way from Antioch, of which city he 
was bishop, to Rome, to suffer martyrdom in the 
arena for his faith, having already been condemned 
to death. The letters, with one exception, are ad- 
dressed to churches along the way — namely, the 
churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, Philadel- 
phia, Smyrna, and Rome. The remaining one is 
addressed to Polycarp. Their date is about the 
year no or 115. The information they afford re- 
garding the institutions and organizations of the 
Church at this time, and the heresies which were 
beginning to make invasions, renders them inval- 
uable to the historian. As offering an example of 
life and encouragement to moral heroism, they are 
a part of our Christian treasures of honor. Pas- 
sages conceived in the most exalted spirit of mar- 
tyrdom abound. His bonds he calls his " spiritual 
pearls." Speaking as a witness of the faith, he 
says, with startling boldness, " I am a word of 
God ! " Carried to a lofty height of spiritual vision, 
he exclaims, "Nothing visible is good ! " As show- 
ing how fervent the spirit of martyrdom had be- 
come and what idea animated it, a passage of some 
length maybe justifiable: "The farthest bounds 
of the universe," he writes to the Romans, " shall 
profit me nothing, neither the kingdoms of this 



The Apostolic Fathers. 21 

world. It is good for me to die for Jesus Christ 
rather than to reign over the farthest bounds of the 
earth. Him I seek, who died on our behalf; him 
I desire, who rose again for our sake. The pangs 
of a new birth are upon me. Bear with me, breth- 
ren. Do not hinder me from living; do not de- 
sire my death. [Spiritual death and life he speaks 
of; martyrdom was entrance upon true life.] Be- 
stow not on the world one who desireth to be God's, 
neither allure him with material things. Suffer me 
to receive the pure light. When I come thither, 
then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imita- 
tor of the passion of my God." 

Grand men lived in those times which tried men's 
souls. Ignatius speaks to the Trallians of their 
bishop, " whose very demeanor is a great lesson, 
while his gentleness is power — a man to whom 
even the godless, I think, pay reverence." Such 
a bishop was Ignatius himself. " Stand thou firm, 
as an anvil when it is smitten," are his words to 
Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was destined to 
follow him to martyrdom. "A Christian hath no au- 
thority over himself, but giveth his time to God." 

4. The Martyrdom of Polycarp. 

This is a letter from the church of Smyrna to 
the church of Philomelium, and thence to the 
Church at large, giving an account of the bishop's 
death for the faith. The description of his hero- 
ism must be given in the words of this earlv epis- 
tle. "As Polycarp entered the stadium,'' It re- 



22 The Church of the Fathers. 

lates, " a voice came to him from heaven: 'Be 
strong, Polycarp, and play the man.' And no one 
saw the speaker, but those of our people who were 
present heard the voice. And at length, when he 
was brought up, there was a great tumult, for they 
heard that Polycarp had been apprehended. When 
then he was brought before him, the proconsul in- 
quired whether he were the man. And on his con- 
fessing that he was, he tried to persuade him to a 
denial, saying, 6 Have respect to thine age/ and 
other things in accordance therewith, as it is their 
wont to say: ' Swear by the genius of Caesar; re- 
pent, and say, Away with the atheists/ Then 
Polycarp with solemn countenance looked upon 
the whole multitude of lawless heathen that were 
in the stadium, and waved his hand to them; and 
groaning and looking up to heaven, he said, ' Away 
with the atheists.' But when the magistrate pressed 
him hard and said, ' Swear the oath, and I will re- 
lease thee ; revile the Christ, ' Polycarp said : ' Four- 
score and six years have I been his servant, and he 
hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme 
my King who saved me ? ' Whereupon the procon- 
sul said: ' I have wild beasts here, and I will throw 
thee to them, except thou repent.' But he said: 
' Call for them ; for the repentance from better to 
worse is a change not permitted to us; but it is a 
noble thing to change from untowardness to right- 
eousness.' Then he said to him again: 'I will 
cause thee to be consumed by fire, if thou despis- 
est the wild beasts, unless thou repent/ But Poly- 



The Apostolic Fathers. 23 

carp said : i Thou threatenest that fire which burn- 
etii for a season, and after a little while is quenched ; 
for thou art ignorant of the fire of the future judg- 
ment and eternal punishment, which is reserved 
for the ungodly. But why delayest thou? Come 
do what thou wilt.' " 

Then, pursued by the outcries of the pagan popu- 
lace, who shouted, " This is the teacher of Asia, 
the father of the Christians, the puller down of our 
gods, who teacheth numbers not to sacrifice nor 
worship," he was brought and bound to the stake, 
" like a noble ram out of a great flock for an offer- 
ing." This martyrdom occurred aboutthe year 155, 
and this is the approximate date of the epistle. 

5. The Teaching of the Apostles. 

This document, commonly called by its Greek 
title — "Didache," Teaching — is fitly described as 
the oldest church manual, or discipline. Its date 
is variously given by scholars from A.D. 70 to 
A.D. 160. It is based upon an older work, a 
moral treatise known as "The Two Ways," and 
its growth, after the fashion of church manuals, 
may have extended through a century. Though 
it exists in an eleventh century manuscript, it was 
not brought to light until some twenty years ago. 
Its importance in showing that the emphasis was 
still placed upon the manner of life, not upon 
speculations, and in throwing light upon the gov- 
ernment and ceremonies of the growing Church, 
is very great. Memorable sayings occur. Wit}- 



^4 ^The Church of the Fathers, 

such a one it begins: " There are two ways, one 
of life and one of death, and there is a great 
difference between the two," Regarding alms- 
receiving and almsgiving, it says: "Woe to him 
that receiveth; . . . he that hath no need shall 
give satisfaction why and wherefore he received." 
Judgment in giving is thus enjoined: "Let thine 
alms sweat into thine hands until thou shalt have 
learned to whom to give." One petition contains 
the yearning of the age: " May grace come, and 
may this world pass away." Reasonableness 
characterizes its virtuous requirements. " If thou 
art able,' it says, " to bear the whole yoke of the 
Lord, thou shalt be perfect; but if thou art not 
able, do that which thou canst." 

6. The Epistle to Diognetus. 

The authorship of this epistle, one of the noblest 
monuments of early Christian literature, is un- 
known, and the date very uncertain. It was prob- 
ably written about the year 150, and addressed to 
the illustrious pagan emperor and moralist, Marcus 
Aurelius, under the appellation of " Heaven-born." 
It may be regarded as an apology, or defense, of 
Christianity. It is therefore of an argumentative 
and philosophical character. Written probably 
from Alexandria, it is strongly tinged by Hellenic 
conceptions, and glows with the lofty eloquence 
which characterized the Alexandrians above all 
others. The author is indeed a forerunner of 
those master spirits of the Hellenic Egyptian capi- 



The Apostolic Fathers, 25 

tal — Clement and Origen — as he is a successor of 
Philo and Apollos. 

The treatise is brief, containing but twelve short 
chapters. Of this noble appeal to a noble emperor, 
one of these chapters seems all too little to trans- 
fer to our pages ; but that may induce the reader 
to desire a first-hand knowledge of the whole. 
Employing the strongest argument of all for the 
Christian religion — the lives of its professors — the 
lofty passage runs as follows : "For Christians are 
not distinguished from the rest of mankind either 
in locality or in speech or in customs. For they 
dwell not somewhere in cities of their own, neither 
do they use some different language, nor practice 
any extraordinary kind of life. Nor again do they 
possess any invention discovered by any intelli- 
gence or study of ingenious men, nor are they 
masters of any human dogma as some are. But 
while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barba- 
rians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the 
native customs in dress and food and the other ar- 
rangements in life, yet the constitution of their own 
citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and 
confessedly contradicts expectation. They dwell 
in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they 
bear their share in all things as citizens, and they 
endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign 
country is a fatherland to them, and every father- 
land is foreign. They marry like all other men, 
and they beget children ; but they do not cast away 
their offspring. They have their meals in com- 



26 The Church of the Fathers. 

mon, but not their wives. They find themselves 
in the flesh, and yet they live not after the flesh. 
Their existence is on earth, but their citizenship is 
in heaven. They obey the established laws, and 
they surpass the laws in their own lives. They 
love all men, and they are persecuted by all. They 
are ignored, and yet they are condemned. They 
are put to death, and yet they are indued with life. 
They are in beggary, and yet they make many 
rich. They are in want of all things, and yet they 
abound in all things. They are dishonored, and 
yet they are glorified in their dishonor. They are 
evil spoken of, and yet they are vindicated. They 
are reviled, and they bless; they are insulted, and 
they respect. Doing good, they are punished as 
evildoers; being punished, they rejoice, as if they 
were thereby quickened by life. War is waged 
against them as aliens by the Jews, and persecu- 
tion is carried on against them by the Greeks, and 
yet those that hate them cannot tell the reason of 
their hostility." 

It can be seen from these manifestoes of the 
proud, the soaring and rejoicing spirit of humble 
men made heroes by a sublime faith and a new 
reading of the universe , why Christianity conquered 
the world. 

7. The Shepherd of Hermas. 

The longest of all the writings of the Apostolic 
Fathers is this beautiful allegory of Christian life. 
"The Shepherd of Hermas" is the "Pilgrim's 



The A-postolic Fathers. 27 

Progress " of the early Church. Indeed, its honor 
was still higher. It was read in the churches, and 
revered as an inspired book for several centuries. 
Origen calls it " a very useful scripture, and in my 
opinion divinely inspired." It was written about 
A.D. 140-150, though parts may be considerably 
older. Hermas is the name of the narrator in the 
allegory, not of the author, who is unknown; and 
the " Shepherd" is Christ. It consists of three 
parts: "Visions," " Mandates," and " Parables." 
Literary skill, beauty of imagery, and imagination 
render it interesting, while its teachings and ex- 
hortations render it profitable, even to a modern 
reader. A few passages in illustration may be 
given: "As I was journeying to Cumas, and glori- 
fying God's creatures for their greatness and 
splendor and power, as I walked I fell asleep. 
And a spirit took me, and bore me away through a 
pathless tract, through which no man could pass: 
for the place was precipitous, and broken into 
clefts by reason of the waters. When then I had 
crossed the river, I came into the level country, 
and knelt down and began to pray to the Lord and 
to confess my sins." And as he prayed his first 
vision appeared to him. This opening of the al- 
legory of Hermas might be interestingly compared 
with the opening of Bunyan's: "As I walked 
through the wilderness of this world," etc. 

The requirements set forth in the Mandates by 
the Shepherd seem too high for Hermas's keep- 
ing: "I say to him, 'Sir, these commandments 



28 The Church of the Fathers. 

are great and beautiful and glorious, and are able 
to gladden the heart of the man who is able to ob- 
serve them. But I know not whether these com- 
mandments can be kept by a man, for they are 
very hard.' He answered and said unto me: ' If 
thou set it before thyself that they can be kept, 
thou wilt easily keep them, and they will not be 
hard; but if it once enter into thy heart that they 
cannot be kept by a man, thou wilt not keep 
them.'" 

The contrast between earthly possessions and 
treasures in heaven, which are Christian works, 
is impressively set forth: "Therefore, instead of 
fields buy ye souls that are in trouble, as each is 
able, and visit widows and orphans, and neglect 
them not; and spend your riches and all your dis- 
plays, which ye receive from God, on fields and 
houses of this kind. For to this end the Master 
enriched you, that ye might perform these minis- 
trations for him. It is much better to purchase 
fields and houses of this kind, which thou wilt find 
in thine own city, when thou visitest it. This lav- 
ish expenditure is beautiful and joyous, not bring- 
ing sadness or fear, but bringing joy." 

This is the interpretation of his first parable. 
The exhortation of another, in which the Church is 
represented under the type of a tower which is being 
builded of materials of many kinds and by many 
workmen, concludes: "Amend yourselves, there- 
fore, while the tower is still in course of building. 
The Lord dwelleth in men that love peace, for to 



The Apostolic Fathers. 29 

him peace is dear; but from the contentious and 
them that are given up to wickedness he keepeth 
afar off. Restore, therefore, to him your spirit 
whole as ye received it." 

Truths precious always to be remembered, and 
precepts we need always to ponder, are sown in 
these pages, fully accounting for the high esteem 
in which the early Church held the beautiful alle- 
gory. "Blessed are all they that work righteous- 
ness. " " Do no wickedness in thy life, and serve 
the Lord with a pure heart." "The righteous man 
entertaineth righteous purposes." "Put away sor- 
row from thyself, for she is the sister of double- 
mindedness and of angry temper." " Clothe thy- 
self in cheerfulness." 

8. Miscellaneous Writings. 

Besides some fragments of Papias, who was born 
about A.D. 60-70, and a few pages of quotations 
from the Elders by Irenaeus, there remain to us fur- 
ther of this second generation of disciples two epis- 
tles: the Epistle of Polycarp, written to the Phi- 
lippians shortly after the martyrdom of Ignatius — 
that is, about A.D. 115 ; and the Epistle of Barna- 
bas, which was written in opposition to Judaizing 
influences that were prevalent. " I know that the 
Lord journeyed with me on the way of righteous- 
ness," he says; and now to his spiritual sons and 
daughters he writes: " I was eager to send you a 
trifle, that along with your faith ye might have your 
knowledge also perfect." 



30 The Church of the Fathers. 

It remains, in the briefest space, to express an 
estimate of these Apostolic Fathers. A saying of 
Papias (lohannis auditor ', as Jerome calls him) re- 
veals how they prized their nearness to the Lord 
Christ and their immediacy to the apostles. Above 
written records they placed, as he says, "the liv- 
ing voice clearly sounding up to the present day." 
But even above the living voice which was from 
without was the living voice which spoke within. 
Clement, exhorting the Corinthians to gentleness 
and unity, but speaks "the words spoken by him 
[Christ] through us." And Ignatius to the Ro- 
mans: "I write not unto you after the flesh, but 
after the mind of God." 

The doctrine, well founded in Scripture, of the 
indwelling of Christ, "the mind of the Father" 
(Ignatius) in the hearts of believers, was the sup- 
port of this claim. Besides, their experiences of 
the life of God in their lives made them conscious 
of the inspiration which gave them the utterance 
of truths hidden from the foundation of the world. 
A newness of life and a working of divine power 
in them constituted a firm basis for speaking with 
authority and with full assurance of Tightness. It 
is not strange that they should affirm, not obtrusive- 
ly but as a matter of course and as no unique thing, 
their inspiration for the service they were called to 
render he Church. 

Their manner of speaking otherwise retains the 
character of the earlier writers. In bold, figura- 
tive, and variable language — not in the cold, hard 



The Apostolic Fathers. 31 

forms of science — they spoke of God and of Christ 
and of the redemption that had been wrought. 
Their utterance was free and large ; for their lives 
were the books which taught them, and their lives 
had been suddenly and gloriously expanded . Their 
thoughts were fixed upon supreme realities, not 
many, but vast — truths of no narrow bounds and 
incapable yet of creedal confinement. The power 
of the gospel, its living witness in a new creation, 
was in them; they were united with God and in 
conscious harmony with the divine order; this ex- 
perience was all-satisfying. No speculative sys- 
tem did they labor to produce, though many far- 
reaching and lofty ideas escaped them, their imag- 
inative thought taking momentary flight to highest 
regions. No rigid creed is elaborated; the need 
of it existed not yet; the simple confessions of the 
earlier day still sufficed. 

Nevertheless the mind of the age was moving. 
Expanding life forces expanded thought. New 
and larger statements of old truths, which are ever 
becoming new and richer, must be made. We can 
discern the operation of this law in the records be- 
fore us. 

While moral instruction plainly appears as the 
chief intention of these writers, yet a development 
of theoretic doctrine concerning the providence of 
God, the mission of Christ, the nature of ceremo- 
nies and offices, and the government of the Church 
is evinced. Later chapters of our story must be 
depended upon to reveal the extent and character 



32 The Church of the Fathers. 

of this development. Suffice it here to say that we 
have in these writings invaluable monuments of an 
obscure period of Christian history. What was the 
earliest teaching, after the apostles, concerning 
Christ, his life and death and redemptive work? 
Concerning the Holy Spirit and inspiration ? Con- 
cerning repentance, salvation, and grace? Con- 
cerning sacraments — the Lord's Supper and bap- 
tism — presbyters and deacons? To find answers 
to these and like questions, we have but the "Apos- 
tolic Fathers." 

Likewise they reveal the state of the Church, 
its divergent tendencies and its dangers, its inward 
strifes and outward foes, its animating hope, its 
lofty aim, and its proud consciousness of a unique 
and glorious mission. There is a ring of triumph 
even in the lamentations and pleadings which are 
wrung from the suffering sect. The persecutions 
of Nero and of Domitian, those first baptisms of 
fire and blood, had been safely passed through, 
and its faith was confirmed by the trials, its cour- 
age was heightened, its life was made to be more 
abounding, its boasting more exultant. The young 
Church, now composed of the second and third 
generations of believers, was conscious not only 
of its own invincibility, but of its future mastery of 
the world. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

"The Apostolic Fathers." Revised Texts, with Short In- 
troductions and English Translations. J. B. Lightfoot. Mac- 
millan and Company, New York. One vol., 8vo; pp. 569. 



THE APOLOGISTS. 



" We do not find felicity in the veins of the eartn, where we 
seek for gold, nor in the bottom of the sea, where we fish for 
pearl; but in a pure and untainted mind, which, if it were not 
holy, were not fit to entertain the deity. 

"A great, a good, and a right mind is a kind of divinity 
lodged in flesh; it came from heaven, and to heaven it must 
return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity which a pure and 
virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree, even upon earth; where- 
as temples of honor are but empty names, which probably 
owe their beginning either to ambition or to violence. I am 
strangely transported with the thoughts of eternity. . . . 

" Our hands need not to be lifted up to heaven, nor the sac- 
ristan entreated to put us on speaking terms with the image 
that we may be the better heard. God is nigh unto thee, he is 
with thee, he is within thee. Thus I tell thee, Lucilius; a sab- 
ered spirit is resident in us, an observer and guardian both of 
what is good and what is evil in us, and in like manner as we 
use him so he useth us. There is no good man but hath a God 
within him." — Seneca. 

" He, then, who has observed with intelligence the admin- 
istration of the world has learned that the greatest and su- 
preme and the most comprehensive community is that which 
is composed of men and God, and that from God have descend- 
ed the seeds not only to my father and grandfather, but to all 
beings which are generated on the earth and are produced, 
and particularly to rational beings — for those only are by their 
nature formed to have communion with God, being by means 
of reason conjoined with him — why should not such a man 
call himself a citizen of the world, why not a son of God, and 
why should he be afraid of anything which happens among 
men? Is kinship with Caesar or with any other of the power- 
ful in Rome sufficient to enable us to live in safety, and above 
contempt, and without any fear at all? And to have God for 
our maker and father and guardian, shall not this release us 
from sorrows and fears?" — Efictetus. 

(34) 



CHAPTER III. 

THE APOLOGISTS. 

SECOND AND THIRD CENTURIES. 

"The Eternal Wisdom has manifested itself in all things, 
especially in the human mind, and most of all in Jesus Christ." 
— Spinoza. 

" These Christian philosophers formulated the content of the 
gospel in a manner which appealed to the common sense of 
all the serious thinkers and intelligent men of the age." — Har- 
nack. 

" It is our task, therefore, to furnish all an exposition of our 
life and doctrines." — Justin Martyr. 

Those gladiators of the faith who by their pens 
defended Christianity against the arguments, and 
more f requently the slanders, of Jews and pagans, 
and the false doctrines of heretics, are known as 
the apologists. Their endeavor was to support 
their faith by representing it as a philosophy. 
To them Christianity was the one consummate 
philosophy sanctioned and approved by Heaven — 
a religious enlightenment proceeding from God. 
The contemporaneous development of Greek phi- 
losophy in the schools of Athens and Alexandria 
made possible and gave impetus to a transforma- 
tion of the simple religion of the Nazarene into 
a theory of the universe — a philosophy. For the 
most part the apologists were learned Greeks who, 
in search of a satisfying scheme of providence and 
an explanation of the moral phenomena of the 

(35) 



36 The Church of the Fathers. 

world, were turned by the ancient prophets of Is- 
rael to Christ and the gospel. They belonged in 
general to the second century, although the great- 
est of all (Origen) belongs to the third. Their de- 
fenses against pagan misrepresentations were ad- 
dressed commonly to the Roman emperors, but 
some were addressed to private individuals and 
some generally to nations. 

The aim of the apologists was to inform the em- 
perors concerning the life and doctrines of the 
Christians and to show how unjustly they were 
persecuted. Addressing cultured men who them- 
selves made pretensions to philosophy § they wrote 
in the character of philosophers and as friends of 
the truth wherever found. The supreme claim 
they have to make for Christianity is not its nov- 
elty, for it is as old as the foundation of the world ; 
not its uniqueness, for it is implanted in the uni- 
versal nature of man ; not its supernatural charac- 
ter, for it is rational and, in fragments, exists in 
the minds of all men ; their supreme claim is that 
a divine and unmistakable sanction to its doctrines, 
the truths implanted in man and grounded in the 
constitution of the universe, has been given in Je- 
sus Christ, the Word become flesh. The content 
of their philosophy was not new; the form was, 
and above all things was convincing. The guar- 
antee of truth, the confirmation of men's belief in 
God and of immortality, was found in the gospel. 

The apologists, therefore, endeavor to present a 
doctrine of the Logos which shall explain how the 



The Apologists. 37 

Greeks were able to utter such great truths as to 
be found in such agreement on essential matters 
with the prophets of Israel and the Christians. 
One principle of enlightenment, the Logos, or 
Reason, of God, had worked in all. This wis- 
dom, says Minucius Felix, "is begotten with the 
very formation of the mind"; for Christ, accord*- 
ing to their conception, is the rational principle of 
the universe. From the same apologist another 
memorable saying gives the general attitude of 
all these learned defenders of the faith: "I have 
set forth the opinions," he says, "of almost all 
the philosophers whose more illustrious glory it 
is to have pointed out that there is one God, 
although with many names; so that any one 
might think either that Christians are now phi- 
losophers or that philosophers were then already 
Christians." 

As we pass the apologists in review it must oc- 
cur to the reader that Christianity was now en- 
gaging either for or against itself the educated 
world. The apologists figure as philosophers and 
learned men. 

Quadratus, bishop of Athens, "a man of under- 
standing and of apostolic faith," as Eusebius calls 
him, has the honor of being the first Christian 
apologist. His appeal was addressed to Emperor 
Hadrian, about A.D. 126. Only a quotation by 
Eusebius remains. 

Aristides, a converted philosopher of Athens, 
addressed an apology to the same emperor about 



3& The Church of the Fathers. 

the same time. His work remains, a noble moriu- 
ment of the sublimity of early Christian thought. 
Its opening is well worth quoting here: "I, O 
king, in the providence of God came into the world 
and when I had considered the heaven and the 
earth, the sun and the moon and the rest, I mar- 
Veled at their orderly arrangement." Thus does 
he introduce to the mind of the emperor the 
thought of a ruling God and of an informing, 
creative Logos, or Reason. 

Melito, bishop of Sardis; Apollinaris, bishop of 
Hieropolis; Miltiades, "Advocate of the Church- 
es " ; Athenagoras, Athenian philosopher; and 
Justin Martyr, most illustrious of all, wrote apolo- 
gies which they addressed to Antoninus Pius and 
Marcus Aurelius. 

These all used the Greek language and Greek 
ideas. Their arguments center about the Greek 
conception of a divine Logos. Athenagoras, 
whose "Plea for the Christians" and "The Res- 
urrection of the Dead" are typical apologies, 
brings forth all the resources of Greek poetry and 
Greek philosophy to establish the Christian inter- 
pretation of the world. That true wisdom is only 
by revelation, is his fundamental tenet. The 
prophets wrote as they were "guided by 1 the' Spir- 
it of God, who moved their mouths like musical 
instruments." The one God is acknowledged by 
the wisest Greeks, likewise the unity and orderli- 
ness of the universe. The Logos of God, which is 
his Son, manifested in Christ, alone explains the 



The Apologists. 39 

cosmos — the rational and beautiful order. "God, 
who is the eternal mind, had the Logos in himself, 
being from eternity instinct with Logos. The 
Son of God is the Logos of the Father in idea and 
in operation." The historical personage, Jesus, 
is little thought about: the whole endeavor is to 
fix ideas. 

"The intellectual culture of mankind now ap- 
pears reconciled with religion." (Harnack.) 
The development of philosophical ideas among 
the Greeks and the development of religious ideas 
among the Hebrews met like confluent streams 
never again to be separated. 

Other apologists of distinction w 7 ere Tatian, a 
disciple of Justin, whose defense is entitled "An 
Address to the Greeks" ; and Theophilus, bishop 
of Antioch, whose defense is addressed to Auto- 
lychus. 

All of these apologies, except that of Quadra- 
tus and of Melito — of which only fragments re- 
main — and of Miltiades, have been transmitted to 
us and are accessible to .the English readers in 
"The Ante-Nicene Fathers." 

Later, Minucius Felix and Tertullian, both ju- 
risconsults of North Africa, used the Latin lan- 
guage in the defense of Christianity in the West. 
Of Tertullian, as also of Origen, a fuller treatment 
is reserved for another chapter. They in their re- 
spective later generations stand out preeminently 
great, as another, whom we shall here dwell upon 
for awhile, does in this. 



4.6 The Church of the Fathers. 

i. Justin Martyr. 
Some one usually gathers up in himself the 
ideas and forces of his age, and gives them, both 
in his life and his works, their consummate ex- 
pression. He thereby becomes in the truest sense 
a representative man. Such, in the age when 
Christianity was fighting for the recognition of the 
cultured and the governing classes, was Justin — 
surnamed, because of his fidelity even unto death, 
" the Martyr." Taking this defender of the faith 
against both pagans and Jews as the exponent 
of his class — as he truly is — and as perhaps the 
greatest of them, we may with profit dwell upon 
his writings and his career. 

Born about A.D. no, of Greek or of Roman 
parents, it is uncertain which, in Samaria, near Ja- 
cob's Well, he received doubtless the usual liberal 
education which well-to-do and cultured families 
gave their sons. This seems to have been supple- 
mented, as was also customary, by travel. His 
thirst for the true philosophy — that which should 
give a knowledge of God and of duty — was eager 
and not to be easily satisfied. In this, too, he rep- 
resented the nobler pagan mind of the age. A 
potent spirit was universally at work among men 
which caused them to seek the word of God. 

Justin relates his experience so interestingly 
that I can do no better than give it in his own 
words, somewhat condensed. He surrendered 
himself first, he says, to a certain Stoic; and hav- 
ing spent a considerable time with him only to find 



The Apologists, 41 

he was gaining no further knowledge of God, he 
left him and betook himself to a peripatetic — a 
shrewd man, as he fancied. "And this man," he 
says, "after having entertained me for the first 
few days, requested me to settle the fee, in order 
that our intercourse might be profitable." He 
abandoned this peripatetic as no philosopher at all. 
His eager desire for the peculiar and choice phi- 
losophy, which must exist, he thought, somewhere, 
brought him to a celebrated Pythagorean — " a man 
thought much of in wisdom." But this sage re- 
quired too much of him in the way of knowledge 
of music, astronomy, and geometry, in order that 
his pupil might be able to contemplate what is 
honorable and good in its essence, and finally, by 
being weaned from sensible objects, arrive at a 
happy life. The master dismissed him as unpre- 
pared. Next he sought the Platonists, "for their 
fame was great." Under their instruction he pro- 
gressed and made the greatest improvement daily. 
"The perception of immaterial things quite over- 
powered me, and the contemplation of ideas fur- 
nished my mind with wings, so that in a little 
while I supposed that I had become wise; and 
such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to 
look upon God, for this is the end of Plato's phi- 
losophy. 

Such was the search, ardent, sincere, and per- 
sistent, for satisfying truth. It was the common 
experience of the loftiest minds of that age. The 
majority of apologists knew the teachings of the 



42 The Church of the Fathers. 

pagan schools by experience; they knew them, 
and found them either false or insufficient. Their 
thirst for the living truth, a fountain of life, drove 
them, as the furies in the myth drove Orestes, 
from city to city and from land to land. This 
is a high tribute which Justin pays to Plato, whose 
ideas could "furnish his mind with wings." There 
were not a few whom the Platonic philosophy 
prepared in this century, as later it prepared Au- 
gustine, for the acceptance of Christian teach- 
ing. We will let Justin himself relate how his 
conversion was brought about: "And while I was 
thus disposed," he continues, "when I wished at 
one period to be filled with great quietness, and to 
shun the path of men, I used to go in a certain 
field not far from the sea. And w r hen I was near 
that spot one day, which having reached I pur- 
posed to be by myself, a certain old man, by no 
means contemptible in appearance, exhibiting 
meek and venerable manners, followed me at a 
little distance. And when I turned round to him, 
having halted, I fixed my eyes rather keenly on 
him." They engage in conversation on the great 
matters which are in the minds of both: the serv- 
ice of philosophy, the knowledge of God, the na- 
ture of the soul, the way of access to divine life. 
In the end, after a discussion of the Greek philos- 
ophers, the old man speaks as follows: "There 
existed, long before this time, certain men more 
ancient than all those who are esteemed philoso- 
phers, both righteous and beloved by God, who 



The Apologists. 43 

spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events 
which would take place, and which are now tak- 
ing place. They are called prophets. These 
alone both saw and announced the truth to men, 
neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not in- 
fluenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those 
things alone which they saw and which they 
heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit." 

Having spoken in particular of the prophecies 
concerning Christ, the promised Saviour, the Son 
of God, he went away, bidding the truth-seeker 
think on his words. " Straightway," writes Jus- 
tin, "a flame was kindled in my soul; and a 
love of the prophets, and of those men who are 
friends of Christ, possessed me ; and whilst revolv- 
ing his words in my mind, I found this philosophy 
alone to be safe and profitable. Thus, and for 
this reason, I am a philosopher." 

Justin can now call himself with truth, he thinks, 
a philosopher, since he has attained a saving 
knowledge, " a clear perception of truth." In to- 
ken of his claim he wore throughout life the phi- 
losopher's gown : none with better reason or great- 
er honor — for he knew himself to be teaching, and 
not only teaching, but also living, as man can, the 
true, the saving philosophy. 

This account of his conversion is given by Justin 
in his " Dialogue with Trypho the Jew." The aim 
of the writing, it will be seen, was to convince the 
Jews that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of their 
prophets. In his apologies, addressed to the em- 



44 The Church of the Fathers. 

peror, Justin seeks to identify the Christ of the 
gospel with the Logos of Greek philosophy. The 
difference between the two productions strikes our 
attention and is very significant. The method, the 
ideas and arguments, and the conclusions, are de- 
termined differently in each case, according to 
the different aim. The endeavor to render the 
gospel intelligible and acceptable to Greek minds, 
and to explain the relation of Christ to the cosmos 
—the general system of things— gave rise to what 
may be called the Logos Christology of this era. 
Speculation took the Platonic conception of a di- 
vine Reason (Aoyos) in all things, and the Word 
(Aoyo?) of the Fourth Gospel, and, by the syncre- 
tism of philosophy and faith, elaborated this Chris- 
tology, or theory of Christ. It was a task imposed 
upon the Christians by the intellectual conditions 
of the age. 

Justin Martyr is the greatest exponent in his 
time of the influence of Greek ideas, and he made 
most use of them in his defense of the gospel. 
He is liberal — he feels he can afford to be — in giv- 
ing credit to pagan literature for much true doc- 
trine. This is one of his lines of argument. An 
extended passage will illustrate : "If, therefore," 
he writes, "on some points we teach the same 
things as the poets and philosophers whom you 
honor, and on other points are fuller and more 
divine in our teaching, and if we alone afford 
proof of what we assert, why are we unjustly 
hated more than all others ? For while we say that 



The Apologists. 45 

all things have been produced and arranged into 
a world by God, we shall seem to utter the doc- 
trine of Plato; and while we say that there will be 
a burning up of all, we shall seem to utter the doc- 
trine of the Stoics; and w T hile we affirm that the 
souls of the wicked, being endowed with sensa- 
tion even after death, are punished, and that those 
of the good, being delivered from punishment, 
spend a blessed existence, we shall seem to say 
the same things as the poets and philosophers; 
and while we maintain that men ought not to wor- 
ship the works of their hands, we say the very same 
things which have been said by the comic poet Me- 
nander, and other similar writers, for they have 
declared that the workman is greater than the 
work." 

Wiser, it seems to me, is this early defender of 
the faith, who so loves truth that he admits and 
honors it even when he finds it among his enemies, 
than many overzealous defenders at the present 
day, who, for truth's sake, dare to be untrue, and, 
proclaiming themselves light-bearers, are willfully 
blind. Justin and Athenagoras could teach them 
a better way. The existence among all nations of 
the true knowledge in some measure is explained 
by Justin in these words: u We have been taught 
that Christ is the firstborn of God, and we have 
declared above that he is the Word of whom 
every race of men were partakers; and those who 
lived with reason are Christians, even though 
they have been thought atheists; as, among the 



46 The Church of the Fathers. 

Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like 
them." Thus is affirmed the unity of the human 
race, the universality of God's fatherhood as a 
real thing, and the effective operation of Christ in 
all men as a light that enlightens. 

Similar to the argument deduced from a com 
parison of the writings of pagans and Christians 
is his argument from a comparison of Socrates 
and Christ. Socrates, he writes, exhorted the 
Greeks to become acquainted with God *' by the 
investigation of Reason (Logos), saying " that it is 
neither easy to find the Father and Maker of all, 
nor, having found him, is it safe to declare him to 
all. But these things Christ did through his own 
power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to 
die for his doctrine ; but in Christ, who was par- 
tially known even by Socrates (for he was and is 
the Word who is in every man, and who foretold 
the things that were to come to pass both through 
the prophets and his own person when he was 
made of like passions, and taught these things), 
not only philosophers and scholars believed, but 
also artisans and people entirely uneducated, de- 
spising both glory and fear and death ; since he is a 
power of the ineffable Father, and not the mere 
instrument of Reason." 

Another passage of like import with those al- 
ready given is both so noble in spirit and so lofty 
in conception that it would be an honor to any 
writer or any age. It will conclude our account 
of the chief of second century apologists: "And 



The Apologists. 47 

I confess," he writes to the emperor, "that I both 
boast and with all my strength strive to be found a 
Christian, not because the teachings of Plato are 
different from those of Christ, but because they 
are not in all respects similar, as neither are those 
of the others, Stoics and poets and historians. 
For each man spoke well in proportion to the 
share he had of the spermatic Word, seeing what 
was related to it. But they who contradict them- 
selves on the more important points appear not to 
have possessed the heavenly wisdom and the knowl- 
edge which cannot be spoken against. Whatever 
things were rightly said among all rnen are the 
-property of us Christians. For, next to God, we 
worship and love the Word who is from the un- 
begotten and ineffable God, since he also be- 
came man for our sakes, that, becoming a par- 
taker of our sufferings, he might alsobringus heal- 
ing. For all the writers were able to see realities 
darkly through the sowing of the implanted word 
that was in them." 

In thus setting forth at some length the doctrine 
of Justin we are justified by the consideration that 
he represents the general educated Christian mind 
of his age. Aristides, " a philosopher of the Athe- 
nians," as he calls himself; Athenagoras, "the 
philosopher of Athens"; Tertullian and Minu- 
cius Felix, the Roman lawyers, had the same 
views of the order and beauty of the world, the 
nobility of human nature, the freedom and ability 
of man, the redemptive goodness of God, all made 



48 The Church of the Fathers. 

both possible and actual by the operation of the 
eternal Word. 

Some further details of Justin's teaching cannot 
be without interest. What, it may be asked, ac- 
cording to his conception, is Christ to men more 
than Socrates? Do not Justin and the apologists 
generally take away the uniqueness and distinct- 
ive character of the God-man? By no means, 
they would answer. For Christ is not simply a 
channel or an instrument of the Logos, not a per- 
son through whom, as through Socrates, the Log- 
os spoke, but he is the very Logos itself. The 
Fourth Gospel has familiarized us with such ex- 
pressions as "The Word became flesh," and "I 
am the Truth," and "the true Light which light- 
eth every man that cometh into the world." We 
have here the two boldest theories of the apolo- 
gists, namely, that the Logos was bodily incar- 
nate in Christ, and that it has sown light in the 
minds of all men — nay 9 that he constituted them 
rational beings. 

Herein consists, therefore, an indestructible 
uniqueness, that Christ is the Word, not its agent 
merely. By virtue of this he has a power, or is a 
power (" Christ, the power of God and the wis- 
dom of God," says St. Paul) to lift up unto himself 
all men — sailors and husbandmen and artisans as 
well as kings and sages— and to quicken into con- 
scious activity in them the seed of the implanted 
Word. For Christ, says Justin, men will die; 
but who will die for the doctrines of Socrates? 



The Apologists. 49 

The religion, therefore, which Justin and his fel- 
low-apologists have to commend to the emperors 
and the " nations" is no new thing, but is as an- 
cient as mankind. It is, under another form, the 
philosophy which the emperors themselves had 
received from the Porch and the Grove of Ath- 
ens. But nevertheless Tertullian can boldly chal- 
lenge them to make a comparison: Jthiid simile 
-philosophies et Christianusf GrcBcice discipuhts 
et colli? " How are a Christian and a philosopher 
alike? A disciple of Greece and of heaven?" 
A new race — and this was the most cogent argu- 
ment of the apologists — has been begotten by the 
power of the incarnate Logos; a new race with a 
new motive to moral excellence and a new power 
of life, with new incentives and a pattern of what 
was to be attained; a new race with " an admix- 
ture of the divine in it," and with all its highest 
guesses at truth and its highest hopes confirmed 
by truth itself. 

The contribution of the apologists to Christian 
thought was in broadening and enriching ideas 
and liberal influences. Impulse and, direction 
were given to speculative thought. The founda- 
tions were laid for a philosophy of the Christian 
religion and for metaphysical disputations which 
had better not have been, as we judge. But "in 
the wanderings of many ways" the ever-restless 
human mind may grow weary, but it never stops. 
And these men seemed to have their work to do, 
and did it courageously. 
4 



50 The Church of the Fathers. 

The attraction of Justin, "the philosopher and 
martyr," for the modern man is his largeness of 
heart and mind, the general inclusiveness of his 
sympathies, his great thirst of truth that bears 
with it assurance of its character. His spirit was 
the liberal, sane, and sweet spirit of the few lofty 
souls who have been the glory of humanity in the 
dark ages of the world; its stars, shining forever 
and ever. He was a saint as well as a philosopher, 
a confessor and martyr, a whole-hearted, liberal- 
minded Christian humanist, an heroic and winsome 
personality. After many years of itinerant preach- 
ing and teaching, and fearless championship of the 
truth, he bore witness by his death, about the year 
165, and won the surname of Martyr. 



THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. 



"We are not to be anxious about living, but about living 
well.' , 

" Let us pursue this course, since this way the Deity leads 
us." 

" Philosophy is the highest music, and I was devoted to it." 

44 True virtue subsists with wisdom." 

"'For there are/ say those who preside at the mysteries, 
4 many wand-bearers, but few inspired.' These last, in my opin- 
ion, are no other than those who have pursued philosophy 
rightly; that I might be of their number, I have, to the utmost 
of my ability, left no means untried, but have endeavored to 
the utmost of my power." — Sayings attributed to Socrates by 
Plato, 

44 It is the Divine Principle within us which in some way sets 
everything in motion. Reason has its origin in Something bet- 
ter than itself. What is there, then, which you could call bet- 
ter than rational cognition except God ? " — Aristotle. 

(52) 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. 

"We shall not err in alleging that all things necessary and 
profitable for life came to us from God, and that philosophy 
more especially was given to the Greeks as a covenant pecul- 
iar to them, being, as it is, a stepping-stone to the philosophy 
which is according to Christ." — Clement of Alexandria. 

i. Philonism. 
The preparation for a rational Christianity, 
which should meet the demands and solve the 
problems of the pagan world, is nowhere better 
illustrated than at Alexandria. Here the develop- 
ment of Platonism had proceeded to such an ex- 
tent that the gospel of the Son of God, the Eter- 
nal Word, or Logos, seemed exactly suited to sup- 
ply what was lacking, and so complete it. Starting 
from Platonic ideas, Philo had given new and ex- 
acter expression to the theory of the dualism of 
God and the world, of spirit and matter. God, he 
taught, acted on the world through angels and di- 
vinities, called in the philosophy of the time logoi, 
or archetypal ideas, or powers. Now these were 
all comprehended in the one Logos, the operative 
reason of God. The term was so used as to in- 
clude both idea and power, both thought and the 
product of thought. On the one side, then, the 
Logos partook of the nature of God — was God; 
on the other, it shared in the nature of the world — 
it was the rationality of created things, therefore 

(53* 



54 The Church of the Fathers. 

the Logos was a Mediator between God and the 
world; and as man is a microcosm — summing up 
in himself both the spiritual and the material ele- 
ments of the universe — this mediation is accom- 
plished by the Logos in man ; the Word in him is 
made flesh. 

So far had Philonism advanced at Alexandria in 
the first century of our era. To this great Jewish 
philosopher belongs, therefore, the credit of hav- 
ing developed out of Greek thought a system which 
not only opened the way for a divine revelation, 
but for its completion demanded such a revelation. 
A Logos philosophy of creation and redemption 
was worked out by a Greek-cultured Jew before 
the gospel had entered the Hellenic world. But 
the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Alexandrian Greek 
translation known as the Septuagint, had been in 
circulation there for two hundred 3/ears, and had 
exerted an influence, especially by the words con- 
cerning wisdom in Proverbs and some of the 
Apocrypha, on philosophy, and in turn had re- 
ceived a new and allegorical interpretation from 
the Hellenists, or those trained in Greek ways of 
thinking. The meeting and mingling of these di- 
vers streams of thought can hardly be overesti- 
mated in the results that were thereby produced. 
It was a characteristic feature of the age, and 
Philo offers one of the completest illustrations. 
Into his system entered ideas and influences from 
Stoicism, Neopythagoreanism, Platonism, and the 
Old Testament wisdom literature. The intellect- 



The School of Alexandria. 55 

ual ferment and eager search of the age for the 
true philosophy that should reveal God and the 
way of redemption brought elements from many 
quarters of the earth, and, fusing them together in 
the great alembic of a cosmopolitan culture, pro- 
duced such creations of the moral and spiritual 
nature of man as no other age has equaled. Philo 
taught three doctrines of supreme importance to 
Christianity: (1) The divine original Essence is 
supra-rational, and must therefore be revealed; 
(2) only by ecstasy does the soul attain to a vision 
of God; (3) the Logos is the Son of God. 

The effecting of a union between Greek thought, 
Hebrew revelation, and gospel history could not be 
accomplished by Philo or by his century ; the times 
were not yet fulL Yet Philo's philosophy of re- 
ligion and his allegorical mode of interpreting 
Scripture prevailed to such an extent that he gave 
its permanent character in the second and third 
centuries to Alexandrian Christianity. This nota- 
ble work — one of the most remarkable in the his- 
tory of the Church — belonged to that famous school 
of theologians which numbered among its leaders 
two of the greatest scholars and thinkers of any 
age: Clement and Origen. Before speaking of 
these, however, another school of philosophy must 
come in for a brief review. 

2. Neoplatonism. 

Alexandria has been "the Mother and Mistress 
of Churches. 3 ' In the second and third centuries 



$6 The Church of the Fathers. 

she was the center of the intellectual activities of 
the religious aspirations and spiritual fermentation 
of the Hellenic world. Here all races and all cults 
and all philosophies met, and here were produced 
new an4 extraordinary developments by the char- 
acteristic eclectic and syncretic methods produced. 
Neoplatonisna was the highest and the noblest of 
such productions. It was idealism in philosophy 
brought to perfect flower and become religious; it 
was religion exalted to the highest summits of 
idealistic philosophy. Aspiration was set down 
by the gnostics to be the best thing in the world, 
as giving wings to bear up the soul; in Neoplaton- 
ism, the aspiration of the soul after highest things 
— the being with God and blessedness through 
union with him — finds its supreme historical mani- 
festation. It failed as a religion, it is true; it 
failed because it revealed not the Way— a living, 
personal Example; it failed because it offered no 
Redeemer; it failed because it was too idealistic, 
too high in its aim, for common flesh-and-blood 
creatures, unless it had opened up new resources 
of immortal strength, unless it had supplied divine 
power. But though it failed, its influence was not 
only for the time dominant with a large class; it 
entered into a higher philosophy, that of the Word, 
and became a permanent factor in the world's re- 
ligious life. Being itself the consummate result of 
the religious culture and philosophic doctrines of 
the world up to that time, it yielded to Christian- 
ity as a higher assimilating power, a more reigning 



Th e School of A lexan dria . 5 7 

force among men. "The ethical temper," says 
an eminent writer, " which Neoplatonism sought 
to beget and confirm was the highest and purest 
which the culture of the ancient world produces." 
Upon this inheritance Christianity, " the heir of all 
ages," entered with justifying wisdom. 

In the third century it numbered among its ad- 
herents Ammonius Saccas, who is regarded as its 
founder; Plotinus, its highest exponent in both 
doctrine and life; Porphyry and Jamblichus, for- 
midable defenders of its claims against Christian- 
ity itself. Their effort to create out of philosophic 
ideas a universal religion, and to erect moral aspi- 
ration into a redemptive principle, may be ac- 
counted a failure; but the doctrines which they 
taught, inefficient as they were for the reforma- 
tion of the world so long as set up in rivalry to 
Christian teaching, when received into the Church 
and filled with a new spirit and principle of life — 
the Word— became potent for uplifting and enlight- 
ening mankind. 

3. Pant^nus. 

The sharp conflict between Christianity and pa- 
ganism in the great Hellenic city of Egypt occa- 
sioned the founding of the first theological sem- 
inary — the famous catechetical school of Alexan- 
dria. It appears in history near the close of the 
second century, with Pantaenus, "a man highly 
distinguished for his learning," says Eusebius, at 
its head. The same historian further writes of 
this "school of the faithful" in Alexandria: "A 



58 The Church of the Fathers. 

school of sacred learning, which continues to our 
day [about A.D. 335], was established there in 
ancient times, and, as we have been informed, was 
managed by men of great ability and zeal for di- 
vine things. Among these it is reported that Pan- 
tsenus was at that time especially conspicuous, as 
he had been educated in the philosophical system 
of those called Stoics. . . . He expounded 
the treasures of divine doctrine both orally and in 
writing." 

Into this school, founded for the defense of 
Christianity, the whole of Greek science was 
brought and made to serve the purpose of Chris- 
tian apologetics. The educated classes were ap- 
pealed to by a rational system of doctrine and an 
allegorical interpretation of Scripture. The tra- 
ditions of the Church were treated with freedom, 
yet with reverence, and were explained in a mys- 
tical and spiritual sense. Exegesis was learned 
and ingenious; able commentaries on all parts of 
the Bible were written. An account of the lives 
and works of the two greatest teachers of the 
school will not only furnish the reader biographies 
of great men whom all the world should know and 
honor, but will in the best way be an exposition of 
the age and of Christianity engaged in the great 
work of conquering it. 

4. Clement. 

Titus Flavins Clemens, commonly designated 
" Clement of Alexandria " to distinguish him 



The School of Alexandria. 59 

from the earlier " Clement of Rome," was born 
about the middle of the second century, whether 
at Athens or at Alexandria is not certain. That 
by training he was an Athenian, and that in cos- 
mopolitanism he was an Alexandrian, are assured 
facts. Like Justin Martyr and many others of 
that time, he devoted his life to the finding out of 
a true teacher of wisdom. Traveling over the 
civilized world, he drank eagerly at every foun- 
tain, but his soul yet thirsted. He mentions six 
illustrious teachers at whose feet he sat without 
finding satisfaction. At last he came to Alexan- 
dria, where he was led to the school of Pantasnus. 
His own beautiful words must now relate his new 
experience: " When I came upon the last [he was 
the first in power}, having tracked him out con- 
cealed in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true, the 
Sicilian bee, gathering the spoil of the flowers of 
the prophetic and apostolic meadow, engendered 
in the souls of his hearers a deathless element of 
knowledge." " The deathless element of knowl- 
edge " thus engendered in his soul was ever after- 
wards the power in him of a new life, and the chief 
principle of his exalted teaching. In time, about 
A.D. 190, he succeeded his beloved master as the 
head of the " School of the Faithful," as Eusebius 
calls it. 

The next twelve years were years of great litera- 
ry productivity in Clement's life. Not only did he 
teach orally, and indoctrinate those who were to 
continue his labors and influence, but with his pen 



60 The Church of the Fathers. 

he was busy laying the foundations of the future 
dogma of the Church. Three works of his have 
been transmitted to us, which are easily the mas- 
terpieces of second century literature. They are: 
"An Exhortation to the Heathens," "The In- 
structor," and " The Stromata." Besides these, 
he wrote many others; but only one other treatise, 
entitled "Who is the Rich Man that Shall be 
Saved?" is extant. The three larger and nobler 
works constitute a trilogy, each having its own 
special aim, but all designed together to one end. 

"The Exhortation" presents paganism as " a 
creed outworn," an effete religion, and persuades 
the cultured Greek to choose the true philosophy. 
The beginning of this "Exhortation " is a beauti- 
ful illustration of Clement's learning and style: 

"Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna 
were both minstrels, and both were renowned in 
story. They are celebrated in song to this day in 
the chorus of the Greeks, the one for having al- 
lured the fishes, the other for having surrounded 
Thebes with walls by the power of music. An- 
other, a Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he 
also is the subject of a Hellenic legend), tamed 
the wild beasts by the mere might of song, and 
transplanted trees — oaks — by music. I might tell 
you also the story of another, a brother to these — 
the subject of a myth, and a minstrel — Eunomos 
the Locrian and the Pythic grasshopper. A solemn 
Hellenic assembly had met at Pytho to celebrate 
the death of the Pythic serpent, when Eunomos 



The School of Alexandria. 61 

sang the reptile's epitaph. Whether his ode was 
a hymn in praise of the serpent, or a dirge, I am 
not able to say. But there was a contest, and 
Eunomos was playing the lyre in the summer time. 
It was when the grasshoppers, w r armed by the sun, 
were chirping beneath the leaves along the hills; 
but they were singing — not to that dead dragon, but 
to God All- wise — a lay unfettered by rule, better 
than the numbers of Eunomos. The Locrian breaks 
a string. The grasshopper sprang on the neck of 
the instrument, and sang on it as on a branch; 
and the minstrel, adapting his strain to the grass- 
hopper's song, made up for the want of the miss- 
ing string. The grasshopper then was attracted 
by the song of Eunomos, as the fable represents, 
according to which also a brazen statue of Euno- 
mos with his lyre, and the Locrian' s ally in the 
contest, was erected at Pytho. But of its own 
accord it flew to the lyre, and of its own accord 
sang, and was regarded by the Greeks as a mu- 
sical performer. 

" How, let me ask, have you believed vain fa- 
bles, and supposed animals to be charmed by 
music, while Truth's shining face alone, as would 
seem, appears to you as disguised, and is looked 
on with incredulous eyes? And so Cithasron, and 
Helicon, and the mountains of the Odrysi, and 
the initiatory rites of the Thracians, mysteries of 
deceit, are hallowed and celebrated in hymns." 

In place of these " deceitful mysteries," he has 
to offer them truth and wisdom in all their bright- 



62 The Church of the Fathers. 

ness out of heaven and the sacred prophetic 
choir. " What my Eunomos sings," he continues, 
" is not the measure of Terpander, nor that of 
Capito, nor the Phrygian, nor Lydian, nor Do- 
rian, but the immortal measure of the new har- 
mony which bears God's name — the new, the 
Levitical song." 

Thus beginning his life work with a hortatory 
and argumentative address to the Hellenic peoples, 
Clement continued the task of the apologists, and 
in doctrine as in method is their true successor. 
He brought the widest and most varied learning, 
together with a liberal though intense spirit, to the 
service of " Truth from heaven." His achieve- 
ment was the completing of the bond between 
Hellenism and Christianity. 

With Justin Martyr, of the earlier apologists, 
Clement is spiritually closest of kin. His doctrine 
of the Logos sfiermaticos, or seminal Word, is the 
same: "For," he says, "into all men whatever, 
especially those who are occupied with intellec- 
tual pursuits, a certain divine effluence has been 
instilled; wherefore, though reluctantly, they con- 
fess that God is one, indestructible, unbegotten, and 
that somewhere above in the tracts of heaven, in 
his own peculiar appropriate eminence, whence he 
surveys all things, he has an existence true and eter- 
nal." And hequotes Euripides, among many others, 
as bearing witness to high conceptions of God : 

Tell me what I am to conceive God to be, 
Who sees all things, and is himself unseen. 



The School of Alexandria. 63 

Further on he exclaims, ''Whence, O Plato, is 
that hint of the truth which thou givest ! Whence 
this rich copiousness of diction which proclaims 
piety with oracular utterance?" Cleanthes, too, 
he affirms, taught " a true theology." These all 
had "received scintillations of the divine word," 
for " the force of truth is not hidden/' 

The explanation of all is brought to light in the 
gospel of the Son of God: "The Word, who in 
the beginning bestowed on us life as Creator when 
he formed us, taught us to live well when he ap- 
peared as our teacher ; that as God he might after- 
wards conduct us to the life which never ends." 

The divine mission of philosophy among the 
Greeks, as of the law among the Hebrews, to 
bring them to Christ, is expressed with convic- 
tion. For philosophy, he says, is "the clear im- 
age of truth, a divine gift to the Greeks." And 
further: "Perchance, too, philosophy was given 
to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the 
Lord should call the Greeks. For this was "a 
schoolmaster to bring the Hellenic mind, as the 
law the Hebrews, to Christ;" Philosophy, there- 
fore, was a preparation, paving the way for him 
who is perfected in Christ." But he chides the 
Greeks for neglecting the faith, "which of itself, 
and from its own resources, chooses at once what 
is best": "You ought, O men, when reflecting 
on the good, to have brought forward a witness 
inborn and competent." 

"The Instructor" is designed to teach those 



64 The Church of the Fathers. 

who have been won from heathenism to the way 
of life. It is a treatise on Christian ethics — a re- 
markably thorough and still useful treatise. In 
scope and manner, in definition of aim and terms, 
in conception of the purpose of life and of the 
factors in it, a better book has scarcely been writ- 
ten. His fundamental principle is that " virtue is 
rational, sin is irrational." "Everything that is 
contrary to right reason is sin." Virtue is defined 
as "a state of the soul rendered harmonious by 
reason in respect to the whole of life." The whole 
scope of Christian ethics is indicated in these words : 
"And Christian conduct is the operation of the ra- 
tional soul in accordance with a correct judgment 
and aspiration after the truth, which attains its des- 
tined end through the body, the soul's consort and 
ally. Virtue is a will in conformity to God and Christ 
in life, rightly adjusted to life everlasting. For the 
life of Christians, in which we are now trained, 
is a system of reasonable actions— that is, of those 
things taught by the Word — an unfailing energy, 
which we have called faith." 

All rash attempts at changing human nature, or 
of recreating man, are held in check by this wise 
caution: " Whatever things are natural to men we 
must not eradicate from them, but rather impose 
on them limits and suitable times." 

The finest Greek thought, moved, however, by 
a diviner wisdom, speaks in this nobly conceived 
passage concerning truth and beauty: "In the 
soul alone are beauty and deformity. [All out- 



The School of Alexandria. 65 

ward ornaments are but " girls' gewgaws" to be ut- 
terly cast off.] Only the virtuous man is really 
beautiful and good. And it is laid down as a dog- 
ma, that only the beautiful is good. And excel- 
lence alone appears through the beautiful body, 
and blossoms out in the flesh, exhibiting the amia- 
ble comeliness of self-control, whenever the char- 
acter like a beam of light gleams in the form. For 
the beauty of each plant and animal consists in its 
individual excellence. And the excellence of man 
is righteousness, and temperance, and manliness, 
and godliness. The beautiful man is then he who 
is just, temperate, and, in a word, good; not he 
who is rich." 

On knowledge is set a value coequal with that of 
faith. For " neither is knowledge without faith, 
nor faith without knowledge." Man is fashioned 
to have intercourse with God and to know him. 
46 The Word of God became man," he writes, with 
startling boldness, "that thou mayest learn from 
man how man may become God." Again, in praise 
of the dignity of man, he bursts forth: "A noble 
hymn of God is an immortal man, established in 
righteousness, in whom the oracles of truth are en- 
graved. For where but in a soul that is wise can 
you write truth? where love? where reverence? 
where meekness? " 

From these principles he deduces the following 

doctrine: " It is, then, as appears, the greatest of 

all lessons to know oneself. For if one knows 

himself, he will know God ; and knowing God he 

5 



66 The Church of the Fathers, 

will be made like God, not by wearing gold or long 
robes, but by welldoing, and by requiring as few 
things as possible." 

" The Stromata" is Clement's crowning literary 
achievement. Its design is to bring the Christian 
to perfection of knowledge and love. The order 
and stages of Christian growth he had outlined in 
' ' The Instructor ' ' as follows : ' ' Being baptized, we 
are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; be- 
ing made sons, we are made perfect; being made 
perfect, we are made immortal." 

He who has been perfected is called a gnostic, 
that is, one vthoknows — "the man of understanding 
and perspicacity." Being illuminated, he makes 
the service of God, bestowed in ceaseless love, his 
continual study and occupation. He alone is truly 
pious. He alone worships the true God in a man- 
ner worthy of him: "And that worship meet for 
God is followed by loving and being loved by 
God." He may be calumniated, as Socrates was, 
for an atheist; but he dwells in God, and alone 
knows him. He moves "amid things sure and 
wholly immutable," possessing a sure grasp of di- 
vine science. "His whole life is prayer and con- 
verse with God." 

To such a height of Christian teaching — no high- 
er, it is true, than the Bible, yet wonderful outside 
of that — to such an ideal of life, does this Christian 
philosopher of the second century bring us. Clem- 
ent was never a bishop in the Church, but only a 
presbyter. The end of his career is involved in 



The School of A lexandria . 67 

obscurity. He was obliged to leave Alexandria 
A.D. 202 because of the persecution of Severus. 
Some years later he was at Jerusalem, whose bish- 
op, Alexander, he visited in prison. It is in the 
letters of Alexander, A.D. 212, that we have our 
last notice of him. 

An anthology of beautiful thoughts might be 
gathered from his writings, as a suitable appendix 
to this account of his teachings. Only a few strik- 
ing utterances can be presented : 

"Error seems old, but truth seems a new thing." 

" Suspicion is no insignificant seed, and becomes 
the germ of true wisdom." 

"The extremes of ignorance are atheism and 
superstition." 

"Practice husbandry, we say, if you are a hus- 
bandman; but while you till your fields, know 
God." 

"The end of piety is eternal rest in God." 

"The soul is not sent down from heaven to what 
is worse. For God works all things up to what is 
better. But the soul which has chosen the best 
life — the life that is from God and righteousness — . 
exchanges earth for heaven." 

♦"This is the true athlete — he who in the great 
stadium, the fair world, is crowned for the true 
victory over all the passions." 

"Holding festival, then, in our whole life, 
persuaded that God is altogether on every side 
present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we 
sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our 



68 The Church of the Fathers, 

conversation we conduct oui selves according to 
rule." 

" Before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was 
necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And 
now it becomes conducive to piety ; being a kind of 
preparatory training to those who attain to faith 
through demonstration — a schoolmaster to bring 
the Hellenic mind, as the law the Hebrews, to 
Christ." 

5. Origen. 

Clement was the father of Greek theology. 
Origen, his disciple, developed it into system and 
gave it currency. When the master was driven 
out of Alexandriaj his illustrious pupil, though not 
yet eighteen years of age, became its able head. 
Born about the year 185, in Alexandria, of Greek 
parents, he had the best educational opportunities 
from the first. His father, Leonidas, appears to 
have been a teacher of grammar and rhetoric — a 
very high function — in the cultured city. Not only 
in the Greek learning of the time, however, did he 
educate his son, but also, and more especially, in 
sacred Scriptures, requiring him, as Eusebius re- 
lates, daily to commit and repeat portions of them. 
The boy learned rapidly, indeed was precocious 
almost beyond example. "Hewas not satisfied," 
says Eusebius, "with learning what was plain and 
obvious in the sacred words, but sought for some- 
thing more, and even at that age busied himself 
with deeper speculations." Though the father 
was ofttimes puzzled by the lad's deep inquiries, 



The School of Alexandria. 69 

and told him he should seek only the manifest 
meaning, yet he inwardly rejoiced and thanked 
God that he had deemed him worthy to be the fa- 
ther of such a child. "And they say," continued 
the historian, "that often, standing by the boy 
when asleep, he uncovered his breast as if the Di- 
vine Spirit were enshrined within it, and kissed it 
reverently." The noble father ended his life in 
martyrdom, his property was confiscated, and Ori- 
gen was left before he was seventeen years old in 
poverty with his mother and six younger brothers: 
"But he was deemed worthy of divine care." 

Under these circumstances Origen bore witness 
to his zeal for the orthodox faith. Having found 
welcome and rest with a wealthy lady who had 
an adopted son by the name of Paul, a distin- 
guished heretic who drew multitudes to hear him, 
Origen could not be induced to join with him in 
prayer: "for he held, although a boy, the rule of 
the Church, and abominated, as he somewhere ex- 
presses it, heretical teachings." Thus he surren- 
dered the kind woman's favor and was driven to 
his own resources for a livelihood. He began 
teaching in Alexandria, and "the heathen came 
to him to hear the word of God." In his eight- 
eenth year he took charge of the catechetical 
school. 

Kindness and good will to those who suffered 
for the faith revealed the nobility of his character. 
"For not only was he with them while in bonds 
and until their final condemnation, but when the 



70 The Church of the Fathers. 

holy martyrs were led to death he was very bold 
and went with them into danger." The persecu- 
tors arose therefore in fury against him, but he 
escaped marvelously through the helping hand of 
God. He also practiced a severe asceticism. Giv- 
ing up his secular teaching and parting with his 
valuable classics, he lived on four oboli, or about 
fourteen cents, a day. He fasted often, and lim- 
ited himself in sleep, devoting the night hours to 
study of the Scriptures. Interpreting literally 
the gospel where the Master exhorts not to have 
two coats, he lived in cold and nakedness. For 
years he wore no shoes and slept upon the ground. 
The effect of such a manner of life upon others 
was very great, and many were inspired to mar- 
tyrdom in the prevailing persecution. The histo- 
rian who furnishes us this account of the illustri- 
ous teacher sums all up in one beautiful sentence: 
" They say that his manner of life was as his doc- 
trine, and his doctrine as his life." 

Of his doctrine now, since by common consent 
he is easily the chief in learning and in influence 
among the Fathers before Augustine, we must give 
an account. We find them set forth with system 
in his "De Principiis," and with polemic force in 
his " Reply to Celsus." Origen was the most 
prolific writer known to us of antiquity. Epipha- 
nius relates that he was the author of six thousand 
volumes. This certainly includes every treatise, 
however brief, and his sermons — regarded each 
as a " book." Jerome, too, wondered at his pro- 



The School of Alexandria. 71 

ductivity, saying he wrote more than anybody 
else could read. 

In his " De Principiis" Origen discusses in or- 
der each tenet of the Church's creed, presenting a 
philosophy of Christianity. God, Christ, the Holy 
Spirit, rational natures, the fall, the final restora- 
tion, the nature of souls, the incarnation, and, 
withal, the proper mode of interpreting Scripture, 
are the subjects of his treatment. His doctrine of 
God was transcendental: he is one, immaterial, 
absolute, self-conscious. He is eternally revealing 
himself by a necessary self-unfolding. This oc- 
curs by means of the Logos, which is his conscious 
spiritual activity. It is the " compendium of world- 
creative ideas, 7 ' a "second God," eternally be- 
gotten, " as the brilliancy which is produced from 
the sun." 

The Logos, or Divine Reason, havingunited itself 
with an unfallen spirit, which chooses to become a 
soul and dwell upon the earth in order to redeem 
mankind, is made known as Christ. In order to 
understand Origen's idea it must be explained that 
he held the theory of a threefold nature of man, as 
consisting of body, soul, and spirit — the last two 
being commonly distinguished as the " animal soul" 
and the " reasonable soul" (an/ma and mens); and 
that the spirit, or reasonable soul, had preexistence, 
and, before time, fell into sin, and was cast down to 
earth for punishment. Christ's soul was an unfall- 
en spirit which "elected to love righteousness and 
hate iniquity" The Divine Reason unites with the 



72 The Church of the Fathers. 

soul, which is like all other reasonable souls, only 
sinless, and becomes man-— the " God-man." The 
Logos thus united with the soul glorifies and deifies 
it, as the soul also glorifies and deifies the body ; so 
that the whole man Jesus becomes divine. "The 
explanation of that mystery," he says, "may per- 
haps be beyond the grasp of the entire creation of 
celestial powers," and not merely beyond that of 
the holy apostles. The thought of Christ's glorious 
and mysterious nature inspired him to an utterance 
that is justly famous: "Since, then," he writes, 
"we see in him some things so human that they 
appear to differ in no respect from the common 
frailty of mortals, and some things so divine that 
they can appropriately belong to nothing else than 
to the primal and ineffable nature of Deity, the 
narrowness of human understanding can find no 
outlet; but, overcome with the amazement of a 
mighty admiration, knows not whither to with- 
draw, or what to take hold of, or whither to turn. 
It it think of a God, it sees a mortal. If it think 
of a man, it beholds Him returning from the grave, 
after overthrowing the empire of death, laden with 
its spoils." 

Christ is redeemer of the race by virtue of four 
things which he did or was : First, he achieved vic- 
tory over the power of evil in his life and on the 
cross ; second, by vicarious suffering he atoned for 
and expiated the sins of the world; third, he paid 
a ransom to the devil for mankind — the devil's cap- 
tives in sin ; fourth, by virtue of being the God-man, 



Th e School of A lex an dria . 7 3 

he is the high priest of the human family and the 
mediator between man and God. 

The true nature, the essence, of Christianity, as 
a redemptive power, consisted in " knowledge," 
that higher and more perfect knowledge of divine 
things of which St. Paul speaks in Corinthians, 
and which Origen sought everywhere in the Scrip- 
tures. For not only is there first the plain his- 
torical meaning, secondly the moral teaching, but 
thirdly the mystic spiritual sense. The gnos- 
tic, or enlightened Christian, described by Clem- 
ent, seeks this last and attains to ultimate ideas and 
clear vision. He is saved by the mere revelation 
of the Logos, or Divine Reason, in the threefold 
work of God: nature, the law, and the gospel. 
The lower grades of men, which are two— the so- 
matic or carnal, and the psychic or moral — are 
saved by believing in the historical and moral 
meanings of Scripture. 

Origen taught the final restoration of all fallen 
beings, both men and angels. His fundamental 
conception of the "indestructible unity of God and 
all spiritual essence" compelled him to this doc- 
trine. Everlasting rebellion against God by his 
own handiwork, eternal discord in his kingdom, 
would not be in accord, says Origen, with "the 
final unity and fitness of things." Furthermore, 
the indestructible freedom of the will, a doctrine 
held firmly by all the Greek theologians, renders 
everlasting perdition unnecessary and the turning 
to righteousness possible at any time. "Those 



74 The Church of the Fathers. 

who have been removed from their primal state of 
blessedness have not been removed irrecoverably. ' ' 
"We think, indeed, that the goodness of God, 
through his Christ, may recall all his creatures to 
one end, even his enemies being conquered and 
subdued." Tennyson, in the conclusion of his 
" In Memoriam," it is interesting to note, gives ut- 
terance to the same sublime idea: 

That God, which ever lives and loves, 

One God, one law, one element, 

And one far-off divine event, 
Toward which the whole creation moves. 

And Robert Burns expresses a humorous wish in 
his "Address to the Deil" that even he some time 
may mend his ways and be restored: 

But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-Bent 
O wad je tak a thought an' men 7 ! 
Ye aiblins [perhaps] might — I dinna ken — 

Still hae a stake — 
I'm wae to think upo 7 yon den 

Ev'n for jour sake! 

While thus, in lines marked out by Clement, 
Origen was developing into system Greek theolo- 
gy and creating the dogmatic Christianity which 
was destined to prevail even to this day, yet he 
taught many doctrines which were subsequently 
declared to be heretical — he who fc6 abominated 
heretical teachings." 

The career of Origen was active and troubled. 
In the year 216 the Emperor Caracalla came to 
Alexandria and began a bloody persecution against 



The School of A lexandria . 75 

the Christians, especially the more eminent. Ori- 
gen was compelled to seek safety in another land. 
He went first to Jerusalem, then to Caesarea, being 
received by the bishop of each city with distin- 
guished honors. By invitation of these bishops he 
delivered some lectures in their presence. The 
bishop of Alexandria, Demetrius, hearing of this, 
sent a remonstrance against "such an unheard-of 
act" to the bishops who were guilty of listening 
to a layman ! Origen was summoned to return 
to Alexandria, which he compliantly did. He 
there resumed his interrupted labors, now with 
greater advantages than he had ever enjoyed be- 
fore; for a wealthy admirer, Ambrosius by name, 
furnished him, so Eusebius relates, "with more 
than seven amanuenses, who relieved one another 
at stated times, and with an equal number of tran- 
scribers, along with young girls who were skilled 
in calligraphy. Thus did the labor of producing 
the six thousand volumes proceed. In A.D. 228 
he was summoned on some ecclesiastical business, 
probably the adjustment of some doctrinal dispute, 
to Greece. Passing through Palestine on his way, 
he received ordination as presbyter at the hands of 
the two bishops through whom he had formerly 
come into trouble. This brought him into still 
greater trouble; for, being a eunuch (Eusebius re- 
lates that in his excessive youthful zeal he was 
so made by his own hand), he was ineligible to 
such an office. Again Demetrius summoned him 
back to Alexandria. Returning, he was there ex- 



)6 The Church of the Fathers. 

communicated from the Church A.D. 231, and 
through Demetrius's influence was degraded, by a 
second council, from the office of presbyter. Jeal- 
ousy and vindictiveness never had a more shining 
mark. While admiring great men and rulers were 
desiring but to see the illustrious teacher, this petty- 
minded bishop was harassing him as a fly may vex 
and madden an ox. That he might live and la- 
bor on, Origen betook himself again to Csesarea, 
where, for a quarter of a century, he toiled as few 
men ever have. Disciples gathered about him, 
and the theological school there became a chief 
center of influence. 

Under Emperor Maximin persecution again 
drove him to flee his country. He found refuge 
at Csesarea in Cappadocia, a city and country aft- 
erwards made famous for its great teachers, who 
owned Origen as their master. Having returned, 
after two years, to Palestine, he was cast into pris- 
on at Tyre, and was subject to cruelties from the 
effects of which he died, A.D. 254, in the seventi- 
eth year of his age. He who, while but a lad in 
his teens, eagerly sought to share his father's fate, 
and, being prevented by his mother, wrote to him 
in prison, saying, "Take heed not to change 
your mind on our account" ; and who, in mature 
years, wrote an "Exhortation to Martyrdom," won 
at last the meed of highest honor — the fadeless 
wreath of Christian martyrdom. But in the the- 
ology of the Church he yet lives, the greatest of 
the Fathers. 



Th e School of A I ex an dria . 77 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

Dr. Edwin Hatch's Hibbert Lectures (1888), on "The Influ- 
ence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church," 
is a book the student cannot afford to neglect. It is a masterly 
presentation of notable facts by a ripe, broad-minded, Christian 
scholar. 

Professor Allen's "Continuity of Christian Thought" con 
tains an excellent chapter on "The Greek Theology," in which 
he gives a succinct but admirable account of the Epistle to Diog 
netus, Justin Martyr, Clement, Origen, and Athanasius, through 
whom a continuity of development was kept up from the first 
century far into the fourth. 



EARLY HERESIES AND THE FORMATION 
OF A CANON. 



"Liberty, which is the nurse of all great wits; this is that 
which hath rarify'd and enlighten'd our spirits like the influ 
enceof heav'n; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarg'd,and 
lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves Ye can 
not make us nowlesse capable, lesse knowing, lesse eagerly pur- 
suing of the truth, unlesse ye first make your selves, that made 
us so, lesse the lovers, lesse the founders of our true liberty. 
. . . Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely 
according to conscience, above all liberties. . . . And though 
all the windes of doctrin were let loose to play upon the earth, 
so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licencing and pro- 
hibiting to miscount her strength. Let her and Falshood grap- 
ple; who ever knew Truth put to the wors in a free and open 
encounter?" — Milton, 

(80) 



CHAPTER V. 

EARLY HERESIES AND THE FORMATION OF A 
CANON. 

The question of a canon of the New Testament 
Scriptures arose late in the second century. The 
Christian writings were not called "Scriptures," 
nor was the term "New Testament" applied to 
any body of documents, until nearly two hundred 
years after the birth of Christ. His traditional 
words were the only canon; that is, "rule of 
faith," as the Greek word kg.vw means. But as 
generation after generation passed away, tradition 
grew more and more uncertain, and the need of 
accepted and authoritative documents became more 
and more imperative. From the feeling of a sim- 
ilar need, the written Gospels had been produced 
in an earlier day. When the immediate disciples 
began to be few upon the earth, the need of per- 
manent memorials of what they had seen, heard, 
and felt from him pressed itself upon the Church; 
hence those priceless records. 

But in the time of the Apostolic Fathers there 
was still a " living voice " ; that is, the tradition of 
the apostles themselves ; and this was for that era 
the highest authority. To this was appeal made 
rather than to the written Gospels in the contro- 
versies with the heretics. Papias, who was bishop 
of Hierapolis (A.D. 163), expressed the general 
6 (8t) 



82 The Church of the Fathers. 

feeling of the age when he wrote : " For books do 
not profit me so much as the living voice clearly 
sounding up to the present day." 

To us this may seem strange, but it is true, nev- 
ertheless — and good reason was there for it. The 
" living voice " could not, as they thought, be sub- 
jected to the perversion, the fanciful, allegorical, 
and arbitrary interpretation, which was put upon 
the written word; for along with the oral utter- 
ance came the traditional understanding of it also. 
Memory, too, as must be borne in mind, was a 
more faithful servant in those times of few books 
and no dailies than it is now. The writers of the 
Gospels did not commit to parchment what they 
had seen and heard until many years — perhaps 
from thirty to sixty— after the events themselves ; 
and then they did so only for those who either 
could not hear the apostles preach or for the gen- 
erations following. And, it is worth remarking, 
their writings — our Gospels — were first called 
"Memoirs," or "Memorabilia," which is a very 
suggestive and appropriate name for them. 

But about the middle of the second century the 
need of a canonical body of Christian writings be- 
gan to be felt. Unrestrained diversity of doctrine, 
with no fixed criterion (/. e. 9 canon), was the cause 
of this. Heresies were rife and of every descrip- 
tion. About the year 220, Hippolytus wrote a 
book entitled " The Refutation of All Heresies," 
in which he assailed thirty-two. What if we re- 
garded them as ancient "denominations"? In- 



Early Heresies and J?or?nation of a Canon. 83 

deed, we are yet disposed to think of all beliefs 
but our own as heresies. 

But are we not using this word "heresy" un- 
advisedly? When there is no generally accepted 
interpretation of Scripture, and no lawfully deter- 
mined creed, nor any digest of right doctrine, 
how can there be any contemporaneous verdict 
of "heresy"? For "heresy" means something 
"taken up" in divergence from what already is 
accepted. There must be an orthodoxy before 
there can be a heterodoxy. Naturally, therefore, 
every heterodox view, or heresy, originates with 
one individual, or a small number, in opposition 
to the many. By the spread of the doctrine a 
"sect" arises. Now if the few become many, as 
sometimes happens; if they grow to embrace the 
majority, as not seldom has been the case, what 
do they become but the orthodox party? and what 
their heresy but the faith? Thereupon dissent 
from their ruling is pronounced heretical. Ortho- 
doxy, in short, is the belief of the majority; heresy 
is the belief of the minority. Query: Has right 
and truth, either in politics or in theology, always 
been wholly upon one side? Some would answer, 
perhaps: "Yes, always on the side of the major- 
ity; for vox -pojmli est vox Dei" Others would 
answer likewise: "Yes, always on the side of the 
minority; for only a few ever lead the march of 
humanity into the realm of higher truth, while the 
masses are ever subject to delusion, superstition, 
and error." 



84 The Church of the Fathers. 

This much is certain : the heresy of one genera- 
tion has not seldom become the orthodoxy of the 
next; and every idea has been grasped first by a 
single mind, which, right, stood then against all 
the world, wrong. And till this doctrine makes 
its way like the little leaven in the lump, and per- 
meates the dull mass of the people, this one proph- 
et is a " heretic," liable to be burned, and his fol- 
lowers are a "sect," liable to be stamped out of 
existence. 

In this period, therefore, before the teachings of 
Jesus and his disciples have been digested and re- 
duced to system, and all legitimate inferences made 
from them, there is inevitably much freedom of 
interpretation and speculation. There can be, in 
the nature of the case, no restraint. What is or- 
thodox and what is not has never been deter- 
mined; much free inquiry and free debate, and 
many sharp conflicts, must first take place before 
this matter can be finally settled — if it ever can be 
settled finally. All the possible diverse views must 
meet in the arena of dialectics and contend for 
life and supremacy. Indeed, the decisive conflict 
has not unfrequently been upon the bloody field 
where such watchwords as " homoousias," "the- 
otokos," and "filioque" were the battle shouts. 
Where there is life there will be strife, and this 
was an intellectually active age. 

There is no soil that does not bring forth tares 
among the wheat, and the more fertile it is the 
larger the harvest of both. The chief heresies of 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 85 

the second and third centuries were Ebionism, 
Gnosticism, and Monarchianism. Let us note the 
main features of each in order. 

1. Ebionism. 

From the first there was a Christian sect of Ju- 
daizers; that is, converted Jews, who sought to 
bring over into the new society the ceremonial 
laws of Moses. Ccelum non animuni mutant. 
The controversy manifests itself in the New Tes- 
tament, and gives rise to the first general council 
of the Church, at Jerusalem. The writings of the 
Apostolic Fathers likewise abound in condemna- 
tions of " the superstition of the Jews." The en- 
tire Epistle of Barnabas is an elaborate argumenta- 
tive discourse against Judaism and the materialis- 
tic interpretation of Moses. The most prominent 
party of Judaizers went under the name of Ebion- 
ites (the "poor"). According to Origen, it was 
a sect of two divisions, one of which accepted and 
the other of which denied the supernatural concep- 
tion of Jesus. In the view of the latter, Jesus was 
distinguished from other men only by an extraordi- 
nary endowment of the Holy Spirit received at his 
baptism. Cerinthus, contemporary of St. John in 
Asia Minor, is the most notable representative of 
this phase of Ebionism, although his teachings in- 
cluded elements of the following heresy also. 
Ebionism may be defined as that type of early 
Christianity which sought to retain the greatest 
measure of the Jewish faith and worship The 



86 The Church of the Fathers. 

Essenian branch of it was ascetic and rigid in mo- 
rality and speculative in doctrine. Its adherents 
abstained from flesh and wine, and practiced fre- 
quent lustrations. To their way of thinking, Chris- 
tianity was but restored and pure Mosaism, and 
Christ was only a perfect man. 

2. Gnosticism. 

This system of doctrine sustained the same rela- 
tion to paganism that the foregoing did to Judaism. 
The converts " change their sky, not their mind." 

Indications of Gnostic doctrines also abound in 
the New Testament, especially in the writings of 
Paul and John. The Fourth Gospel is said to have 
been directed against this heresy. In Colossians 
the allusions to it are especially prominent. Gnos- 
ticism is a kind of premature philosophy of evolu- 
tion: speculative, not scientific; also inverted. 
From the Absolute Being, as from an infinite 
abyss, all things have proceeded by an unfold- 
ment in eons, or orders, of celestial beings, grad- 
ed downward, each successive order emanating 
from the last foregoing. These divine beings are 
emanations of the attributes of God, and they 
form an unbroken series between him and the ma- 
terial world. The Logos, or Messiah, is one of 
these beings, who, in the person of Jesus Christ, 
assumed the form of man — not in permanent union, 
as a real identification of the human and the divine 
in one person, but only for the period of his earth- 
ly life. 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 87 

The importance of this teaching for two centu- 
ries in the Church renders necessary a somewhat 
full account of it. Not only were the Gnostics 
numerous, they possessed great culture and in- 
fluence. Their speculations appealed forcibly to 
a speculative age. No teacher more thoroughly 
combined the various religions and philosophical 
elements of that age of eclecticism and syncretism. 
Gnosticism w r as a characteristic product of the time 
in which it flourished, combining, as it did, into an 
impressive and universal system the manifold phi- 
losophies, cults, and cosmologies of many peoples 
and ages. With the facts of the gospel as a basis, 
an elaborate theory of the universe in accordance 
with Hellenic modes of thought, and with sugges- 
tions from the Semitic cosmology of the time, it 
was constructed with marvelous speculative ener- 
gy. The end of it all, too, was practical; it was 
no other than redemption through Christ — that is, 
it ceased not to be Christian, in spite of Semitic 
mysticism and Hellenic speculation. But the sal- 
vation which it sought was to be attained by en- 
lightenment (yiwi?). This gives its distinctive 
character to Gnosticism. The term itself is from 
the Greek word Gnosis (knowledge) — a word used 
frequently hy St. Paul, in First and Second Co- 
rinthians particularly, to designate a special and 
distinct divine grace, a higher and more perfect 
knowledge of Christian things. " The belief that 
Christianity guarantees the perfect knowledge," 
says Edwin Hatch, " and leads from one degrer 



88 The Church of the Fathers. 

of clearness to another, was in operation from the 
very beginning. ' ' We have seen that the apologists 
regarded Christianity as a philosophy; a revealed 
philosophy, it is true, but yet as an enlightening sys- 
tem of truth. The Gnostics carried speculation 
further until the revelation of the gospel was trans- 
ferred from the realm of feeling and action to the 
world of abstract ideas. 

In accordance with the claim which Gnosticism 
set up to a special endowment of knowledge, or 
illumination, it gave its own arbitrary, allegorical 
interpretation to the whole body of Scriptures and 
to the gospel. " The history of the Old Testa- 
ment," says Harnack, " was here sublimated to a 
history of the emancipation of reason from pas- 
sion." The gospel at the same time was con- 
verted into a philosophy of religion, a doctrine of 
the higher enlightenment of the soul, and an initia- 
tion into mysteries, whereby emancipation from 
evil might be won. For enlightenment must be 
followed by consecration, and that by abstinence; 
then would come the perfect gnosis and freedom — 
that is, salvation. 

The problems with which the Gnostic Christians 
dealt were the great problems of all time, but prob- 
lems peculiarly pressing for solution, it seems, in 
that time. The more or less fantastic details of 
their tabular schemes of evolution, their spiritual 
genealogies, should not blind us to the high pur- 
pose and the extraordinary comprehensiveness of 
their undertaking. For no less a task did they set 



Early Heresies avid Formation of a Canon. 89 

themselves, with the new light Christianity gave 
them, than to explain, first, the origin of evil, and 
second, the multiplicity of finite existence, starting 
in thought with an Absolute Being, who is all good. 
The lines of their attempted solution of these ever- 
present problems can be but barely indicated in 
this place : God, being Absolute, was unknowable, 
and had no immediate relations with the created 
universe; matter is eternal and essentially evil, the 
ground of all evil: from the Absolute Being, by 
an unfolding process, all the spiritual orders, or 
eons, which were very numerous, have come into 
existence; one of this order, a god, but not the 
Supreme Being, created the world ; hence its im- 
perfection; Christ is an eon, or spiritual emana- 
tion of the highest God, and reveals his character 
and gives that true knowledge which brings re- 
demption. 

This may not commend itself to the modern 
mind; it may seem even absurd; but these specu- 
lations were not the production of frivolous or 
fantastic minds; they were the serious and pro- 
found answers of serious and great men to ques- 
tions with which the sphinx of their age confronted 
them. To quote the distinguished German histo- 
rian again: "The Gnostics devoted their main 
strength to the working out of those religious, 
moral, philosophical, and historical problems which 
must engage the thoughtful of all times." 

An historical sketch is necessary to make our 
discussion complete. Gnosticism had its birth on 



90 The Church of the Fathers. 

Samaritan soil, from syncretism of Semitic, Hel- 
lenic, and Christian ideas. Simon Magus, accord- 
ing to tradition, was the author of almost all here- 
sies. Proclaiming himself to be " the great power 
of God," he seems in truth to have originated a 
scheme of universal religion which had Gnostic 
elements. Redemption meant, in his teaching, 
emancipation from the world-powers — that is, de- 
mons — through enlightenment. Cerinthus, who 
flourished near the close of the first century in Asia 
Minor, seems to have derived his peculiar ideas from 
Alexandria, a seat of Hellenic speculation. The 
world-creator, he taught, was not the highest God, 
but an inferior angelic being, one ignorant of the 
true God. We find something similar to this in the 
book of Proverbs (chapter viii.), where Wisdom, 
personified, is represented as the creator of the 
world. The Jews, according to Cerinthus, had no 
revelation of the Supreme, but only of the lower 
creative God. 

Basilides, who lived at Alexandria in the reign 
of Hadrian, was one of the most notable of the 
Gnostics. He was a disciple of Menander, who 
was a disciple of Simon Magus. Valentinus, how- 
ever, who lived first at Alexandria and then at 
Rome, about the middle of the second century, 
is the completest exponent of Gnostic doc- 
trines. His system of the evolution of eons, or 
spiritual orders, from the primitive and Absolute 
Being is described as artistic and profound. 
" Valentinus was the most important Christian 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 91 

theologian before Origen." Indeed, the great 
Alexandrians, both Clement and Origen, were his 
pupils. 

At the same time with Valentinus flourished 
Marcion, the most formidable of heretics. He 
numbered distinguished followers, as one of the 
old historians relates, in "every country." While 
a Gnostic, he advocated some views which make 
Marcionism, in a measure, a separate heresy. He 
was irreproachable in manner of life and strict in 
Church discipline.- One of his transmitted say- 
ings would lead us to have a very high opinion 
of his religious principles: "They who believe 
in Christ and lead a holy life out of love to God 
shall attain to bliss in the heavenly kingdom." 
Christ came to reveal the hitherto unrevealed 
good God — not the just God of the Old Testa- 
ment, who said "an eye for an eye, and a tooth 
for a tooth," but Him who gave the new com- 
mandment, "If any smite thee on the right 
cheek, turn to him the other also." This distinc- 
tion of the God of the Jews — Jehovah — the Crea- 
tor of the world, from the Absolute Being, the 
highest God, declared only by Jesus Christ, is 
common to Gnosticism in all its branches. Mar- 
cion was distinguished by the force and moral 
earnestness of his opposition to the worship of Je- 
hovah, who is represented by Isaiah as saying, " I 
create evil." Christ undid the law of this "just" 
God, and put in its stead the law of the good 
God, his Father. Jehovah was hard, passionate, 



02 The Church of the Fathers. 

and no more than just; the God whom Jesus re- 
veals is loving and gracious. 

This halting at the acceptance of the Jewish 
Scriptures and the God they reveal, a reluctance 
on the part of some of the most serious-minded 
and spiritual of that age, bears witness to a real 
difficulty which only the correcter way of inter- 
preting Scripture and God's methods of teaching 
the race could surmount. 

The Gnostics made important contributions to 
Christian literature. Bardesanes, of Edessa, was 
the father of church song. Tatian, of Syria, was 
the author of the first harmony of the gospels, the 
famous " Diatessaron." The first commentaries, 
the first theological treatises, the first doctrinal sys- 
tems, the first collection of New Testament writ- 
ings, were made by Gnostics. Moral ardor and 
mental energy were combined in them in an un- 
usually high degree for any age. Their permanent 
and great contribution to the Christian Church is 
expressed by Professor A. V. G. Allen as " the rec- 
ognition of Christ as having a world-wide relation- 
ship, and the need of Greek culture and philoso- 
phy as aids in the formation of a consistent the- 
ology." 

3. MONARCHIANISM. 

In opposition to Gnosticism and in defense of 
the unity of the Godhead, there arose toward the 
end of the second century within the Church the 
form of doctrine which Tertullian, its great op- 
ponent, called Monarchianism, which our mod- 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 93 

ern word monarchy fully explains. Its authors 
were zealous for the single supreme authority of 
God; but their zeal led them, in two parties, to 
opposite errors — that is, into what the Church 
condemned as heresy. The task lay upon the 
thinkers of that age to explain Christ, and in do- 
ing this it not unfrequently happened that the op- 
ponents of one class of heretics heard the cry of 
heresy raised against themselves. 

The Monarchians, agreeing in their doctrine of 
the supremacy of God, the Father, differed in 
their explanation of this supremacy; and both 
parties became heretical regarding the nature of 
Christ. The one sect, whose descent was traced 
from Theodotus, who v/as excommunicated about 
A.D. 195* and from Artemon, who was excom- 
municated a generation later, represented in fact 
an early Judaistic tradition of Christ as a mere 
man who received favor of God by obedience and 
a special endowment of the Holy Spirit at his 
baptism, whereby he became the Son of God. 
Hence these Monarchians were known as "adop- 
tionists" and "humanitarians." Paul of Samo- 
sata, who was deposed about A.D. 268 from the 
bishopric of Antioch, represents the highest out- 
come of this teaching, and the sect is often spo- 
ken of, therefore, as " Samosatians." His doc- 
trines may be summed up in four propositions: 1. 
The Logos and the Holy Spirit are not persons 
but powers, or qualities, like reason and love. 2. 
The Logos dwelt not in substance but in quality 



94 The Church of the Fathers. 

in Christ in an extraordinary degree. 3. Jesus 
was elevated by merit gradually to divine dignity 
and sonship. 4. He became a Saviour by thus 
elevating himself, by not sinning, but by triumph- 
ing over evil. Two synods discussed the doctrine 
without effecting a settlement; a third deposed 
and excommunicated the head of the sect. 

The other sect of Monarchians destroyed the 
human part of Christ's nature. God was in him 
"the central factor of his being." He was not 
"very man," but only a theophany, a shadowy 
presence of God — no real incarnation, no genuine 
union of God and man in one person, the God- 
man. The several designations — Father, Son, 
Holy Spirit—" denote the same divine nature un- 
der successive forms of manifestation." Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit, in other words, are but 
three successive stages in the divine economy, 
three several modes of the manifestation of 
Deity, This class of Monarchians are, on this 
account, often called Modalists. But since they 
abolished the human nature of Christ, and taught 
that God himself became man and suffered, they 
are also called Patripassians. Tertullian says of 
Praxeas, an early representative of this school, 
that at Rome "he drove out the Paraclete and cru- 
cified the Father. ' ' Noetus, another distinguished 
Monarchian, declared that the "Father himself 
was born, suffered, and died," and that " Christ 
was the one God over all." Notwithstanding the 
fact that several popes of Rome in this century 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 95 

were adherents to this doctrine, it was finally reject- 
ed by the Church. Neither the humanity nor the 
divinity of Christ must be impaired. The loss of 
either element from his nature destroyed his unique- 
ness and his character as Saviour of mankind. 

Sabellius, who flourished at Rome about the 
year 200, gives the completest expression to Mo- 
dalistic or Patripassian Monarchianism. The sect 
is sometimes called after him " Sabellians." The 
unity of the divine essence, a plurality of manifes- 
tations, constitutes a summary of this doctrine. It 
opened up the way for the trinitarian creed of the 
first Ecumenical Council. 

One result of the rise of so many doctrinal con- 
tentions in the Church was the recognition of the 
necessity of a norma fidei^ a criterion of doctrines, 
an authoritative source of teaching. 

4. The Formation of the Canon. 

The young Church set itself, therefore, to the 
determination of what should constitute its au- 
thoritative body of sacred Scripture. While prior 
to the year 150 it yet possessed the "living voice," 
only the Old Testament writings were called 
"Scripture." The first step from this position 
was to quote the sayings of our Lord from the 
"memoirs" of the apostles, employing the form- 
ula, "as it is written," used formerly only of "the 
Jewish canon." But as time enhanced in author- 
ity and sanctity the words of the writers, they 
too came to be introduced by the same formula. 



g6 The Church of the leathers. 

Thus the four gospels came earliest to be au- 
thoritative Christian Scriptures : this about the 
middle of the second century. As yet no canon- 
ical principle had been developed, except the un- 
certain one that the document should contain true 
sayings of our Lord. The question of authorship 
seems not to have entered into consideration. 

It became a custom, first mentioned by Justin 
Martyr, to read from these " memoirs," or gos- 
pels, in the Sunday assemblies of the Christians. 
But long before this, indeed before any gospel had 
been written, it was in vogue for prominent church- 
es, or heads of churches, to address letters of com- 
fort, instruction, and exhortation to other churches 
or individuals. Thus arose the epistolary litera- 
ture, of which there are many eminent represent- 
atives, St. Paul the most eminent. The circula- 
tion of these letters was not always originally con- 
templated; and only when addressed to a church, 
rather than an individual, was it meant for public 
reading. Hence the reading of the early epistles 
was not a regular thing. But antiquity tends to 
bestow sanctity, and in time these first expositions 
of Christian life and doctrine assumed a higher sa- 
credness. 

It was only gradually, in course of many years, 
that a collection of either gospels or epistles was 
made. The grouping of the gospels together as 
an ecclesiastical canon took place not earlier than 
the last quarter of the second century; and this 
preceded the similar grouping of the epistles. 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 97 

Tatian (died A.D. 172) combined the gospels into 
his "Diatessaron,'* andhisfree abridgment of them 
in this process indicates that as yet they did not 
possess that sacredness to which they afterwards 
attained. There was no protest against this free 
handling of the records. 

In the formation of the canon the greatest di- 
versity of opinion existed regarding the epistolary 
and the apocalyptic writings. There were many 
for several centuries who rejected James, Second 
Peter, Second and Third John, Hebrews, and the 
Apocalypse of John ; while many during the same 
period accepted Clement, Diognetus, the Shep- 
herd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse of Peter. 
The very highest authorities are found maintain- 
ing each of these positions. The Muratorian 
Fragment (the fragment of an early canon), sup- 
posed to date from A.D. 170-200, excludes nearly 
all those in the first list, and includes the Apoca- 
lypse of Peter. It was about this time the title 
" Novum Testamentum " came into use; but as for 
a closed canon, that is a thing of the future. But 
the original cause of the agitation of the matter — 
namely, heresy — continues as ahastening influence. 
The part played by heretics in the process itself 
is worthy of remark. The Gnostic Marcion was 
the first to attempt a canon. The first exegetical 
and commentary work was put forth by heretics. 
They were also the first to appeal to the evangeli- 
cal writings in their controversies. 

The process of forming a canon went on independ- 
7 



98 The Church of the Fathers. 

ently, but not without reciprocal influence, in the 
East and the West. In the East, by the middle of 
the fourth century, substantial agreement had been 
reached, although many of the documents in the 
two lists presented above were still in dispute. In 
many canons the Shepherd of Hermas and the two 
Epistles of Clement are included, while the Apoca- 
lypse of Peter stands in higher favor than the Apoca- 
lypse of John. In the West, that the canon was not 
closed at the beginning of the fifth century is evi- 
denced by the fact that Rufinus and Jerome regard 
the Shepherd of Hermas as part of the New Testa- 
ment. But the great influence of Athanasius and 
of Augustine determined the canon of the West to 
be pretty much as we now have it, though the pa- 
pal chair issued no bull to that effect till A.D. 
1441. "This was the first decision of universal 
validity in the matter of a canon." 

Luther's freedom in criticising the traditional 
canon will be brought to mind. He found partic- 
ular objection to James, Hebrews, the Apocalypse, 
and Esther; and of the book of Jonah, he said it 
was " more lying and more absurd than an)' fable 
of the poets." But Luther was no more infallible 
than the popes and councils, of which he said he 
trusted neither. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

1. On Gnosticism, Harnack, " History of Dogma" — a great 
work — has two very instructive chapters (Vol. I., Chapters IV. 
and V.), the titles of which indicate his point of view. They 
read as follows: "Chapter IV. The attempts of the Gnostics to 
create an apostolic dogma, and a Christian theology; or the 



Early Heresies and Formation of a Canon. 99 

acute secularization of Christianity. Chapter V. Marcion's at- 
tempt to set aside the Old Testament foundation of Christian- 
ity, to purify tradition, and to reform Christendom on the basis 
of the Pauline gospel." 

2. Dr. Bernhard Weiss's "Manual of Introduction to the 
New Testament" (two volumes, Funk and Wagnalls Compa- 
ny) contains a good brief account of the formation of the canon. 



L.o?C. 



■>-:,. U:-- 



ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 



" The Roman Church displays from the beginning the essen- 
tial characteristics which distinguished it throughout its long 
and marvelous history. The legitimate daughter of Jerusalem, 
the Roman Church will always have a certain ascetic and sacer- 
dotal character, opposed to the Protestant tendency of Paul. 
Peter will be her real head; afterwards, as the political and 
hierarchical spirit of old Rome penetrates her, she will truly 
become the New Jerusalem — the city of the pontificate, of a 
hieratic and solemn religion, of material sacraments alone 
sufficient for justification. She will be the Church of au- 
thority. . . . 

'* In the reign of Antoninus the germ of the papacy already 
exists in a very definite form. The Church of Rome shows 
itself increasingly indifferent to those visionary speculations 
which were the delightof minds full of the intellectual activity 
of the Greeks, but at the same time corrupted by the dreams of 
the East. The organization of Christian society was the chief 
work pursued at Rome. That wonderful city brought to this 
task the exclusively practical genius and the powerful moral 
energy which she has applied in so many different ways. Al- 
most careless of speculation, decisively hostile to novelties of 
doctrine, she presided, as a mistress already practiced in the art, 
over all the changes which took place in the discipline and the 
hierarchy of the Church." — Renan. 
(I02) 



CHAPTER VI. 

ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION. 

" Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." — 
Ignatius. 

" He that has not the Church for his mother cannot have God 
for his Father." — Cyprian. 

" Rome has spoken, the matter is settled." — Augustine. 

I. 

These three memorable sayings — the first from 
early in the second century, the second from the 
middle of the third, and the last from the begin- 
ning of the fifth — indicate a growth in the theory 
and organization of the Church which it will be the 
aim of this chapter to sketch. In very early times, 
as revealed in the pastoral epistles addressed to 
Timothy and Titus, there were bishops, presby- 
ters, and deacons, who administered the govern- 
ment of the Church and taught its doctrines, ( The 
date of these epistles, however, is still in dispute.) 
Besides these, there were "apostles," "evangel- 
ists," "prophets," and " pastors and teachers" 
(Eph. iv. ii ), who had, each several order, their 
distinct and special functions. When we enter 
the times of the Apostolic Fathers, we find that a 
stricter ecclesiastical organization has caused the 
disappearance of some of these latter classes; yet 
in the " Didache " evidence exists that " apostles," 
"prophets," and "teachers" still continue as a 
sort of itinerant ministry. In the same document 

( io 3) 



104 The Church of the Fathers. 

we find that there is a plural episcopacy— that is* 
two or more bishops over one church — and that 
deacons perform with them about the same func- 
tions. The presbyters, or elders, both rule and 
teach, and are shepherds of the flock. A close 
analogy, it will be observed, exists here between 
the functionaries of the church and those of the 
synagogue. The Jewish institution, which was 
the mother of the Christian society, had not only 
its high priest, priests, and Levites — officers large- 
ly dispensed with in the new order by the ministry 
of the one true High Priest, who " offered one sac- 
rifice for sin forever" — but also its elders, or pres- 
byters ; its ruler, or presiding officer, correspond- 
ing to the bishop ; its almoners, or deacons; its min- 
ister, or servant, also a deacon; and, analogous to 
the Christian apostles, teachers, and evangelists, 
its volunteer preachers, readers, and prayers. 

The influence, furthermore, of the pagan reli- 
gious societies, which were at that time very nu- 
merous and active, was also undoubtedly consid- 
erable. These fraternities, each with its own tute- 
lary divinity, had their regular meeting, or "sacred 
synod," their common meal, their common fund 
of alms, and an administrative officer, whom they 
called ej)iskofos> or bishop. Heathen temples, 
moreover, had their deacons and deaconesses, and 
many rites and ceremonies closely resembling those 
of the Church. As to Him "through whom are all 
things," so to his Church are all things. 

In the earliest "Apostolic Canons" — a sort of 



Ecclesiastical Organization. 105 

constitution of the Church — which began to be 
created about the middle of the second century, 
the functions and qualifications of five classes are 
set forth : 

1 . Of bishops these canons say they shall be elect- 
ed by the congregation, or if that does not contain 
twelve men, then the election shall be by three 
invited select men from a neighboring see. The 
bishop must have "a good report among the hea- 
then" and be "a friend of the poor." Marriage 
is not forbidden him, there is no age qualification, 
and learning is said not to be necessary. 2. The 
presbyters must be elderly and unmarried. They 
are to have oversight and control of the bishop in 
the distribution of the gifts at the altar, which 
seems to have been the bishop's chief function. 
They are also a directing, disciplining, and jurid- 
ical council to the congregation. 3. One desig- 
nated as " reader" seems to have succeeded to the 
divers functions of apostle, prophet, and teacher 
of an earlier day. He was to have a good moral 
character, a good delivery, and ability to expound 
Scripture. In other words, he was the preacher. 
4. There should be three deacons, who were to 
be "maintainers, ministers, and comforters of the 
congregation in their daily life." 5. Three wid- 
ows also were to be selected in each society, if it 
contained so many, whose duties were to pray and 
to nurse — two of the three being assigned to the 
former and one to the latter task. 

Circumstances in time brought about the eleva- 



106 The Church of the Fathers. 

tion of the administrative office of the bishop, and 
established him in supremacy as the head of the 
congregation. The eleemosynary and disciplina- 
ry functions, which were of chief importance in 
the early Church, came into his hands exclusively 
and, by the service performed, heightened his dig- 
nity. Furthermore, he came to be thought of as 
the successor of an apostle — in the original limited 
sense, not the later and extended sense, of that 
word. Therefore, in a time when there began to 
be need, he was regarded as the custodian and 
transmitter of apostolic teaching and faith. As 
there was an unbroken succession of rabbis even 
from Moses's time, so there was in the Church a 
complete series of teachers from the apostles. 
Moreover, to preserve the unity of doctrine and 
of discipline throughout the whole Church, suc- 
cessors of the apostles, as heads of the several 
churches, were required. By tradition these were 
the bishops. Again, the rise of heresies and the 
absence of a standard of doctrine, or rule of faith, 
worked to the same end — the calling into promi- 
nence of one single authoritative head for each 
congregation. 

To sum up results. Regarding the episcopacy 
of the early Church, we note a few interesting 
facts: i. It was originally local, not diocesan. 2. 
It was administrative, not priestly, or clerical. 3. 
It was sometimes plural. In the second century, as 
attested near its close by Irenseus, who was bishop 
of Lyons in Gaul, there gradually took place a 



Ecclesiastical Organization. 107 

change. First, a sharp distinction arose between 
the clergy and laity — which distinction hardly ex- 
isted in the Apostolic Church. Secondly, there 
came to be a permanent, settled ministry— -a bish- 
op for each congregation. Thirdly, to these, as 
successors of the apostles and the transmitters 
from them of the true faith and doctrine, a spe- 
cial grace, an illumination by the Holy Spirit, be- 
longed. Fourthly, they have a general relation to 
the Church universal. 

As the Church grew, and its organization de- 
veloped, it assumed more and more the pattern of 
the Roman empire. By this time— the year 200 
— it had become as extended as that empire, and 
was rapidly gaining upon it in power. Its teach- 
ers had followed the soldiers— the Word of peace 
pursuing the arms of conquest. All the larger 
cities and many of the smaller towns had their 
churches and their bishops, presbyters, and dea- 
cons. The perfecting of the organization pro- 
ceeded on the models offered by the empire. 
First, the territorial divisions were made to co- 
incide. The bishop then was elevated from his 
position as pastor of a single flock to the over- 
sight of a district, or diocese. Presbyters became 
priests, each in charge of a separate congregation 
within or around the city. This brought about 
two results — a diminishing of the number of bish- 
ops, and an elevation of them in dignity. In the 
larger eastern cities — Jerusalem, Constantinople, 
Antioch, etc. — the bishop received the title of Pa- 



io8 The Church of the Pat hers. 

triarch or Archbishop; in the chief western cities, 
the latter title or the designation of Metropolitan 
was bestowed upon him. 

About the beginning of the third century there 
emerged to view two conceptions that were des- 
tined to be of supreme moment in Christian history. 
The first was the idea of the Catholic— that is, uni- 
versal — Church; the second was the theory of the 
supremacy of Rome. Neither was of sudden birth 
or fortuitous origin, but they were alike the slow 
products of time and favoring conditions. The 
conception of a Church universal, it seems, should 
always have existed; but from the manner of the 
planting of the gospel in various lands — Greece, 
Egypt, Arabia, Italy, Gaul — by independent mis- 
sionaries, it was not so. The term when first used 
by Ignatius means only general as opposed to par- 
ticular; and when next used, in the Muratorian 
Fragment, about A.D. 175, it refers to doctrinal 
unity. Not until we come to Irenaeus do we find 
it used in the now accepted sense of the one or- 
ganized, orthodox Church. The Roman idea of 
imperial unity and universal dominion had inspired 
this idea and ambition into the Church. Cyprian, 
bishop of Carthage (248 to 258), thoroughly domi- 
nated by Roman ideas of government, did more 
than anybody else to impress the doctrine of eccle- 
siastical unity and of Catholicism. "The Church 
is one," "the episcopate is one," he asserted with 
great force. It was a useful and sublime concep- 
tion. Only the abuse of it ever wrought harm. 



Ecclesiastical Oi'ganization. 109 

II. 
There were many circumstances that favored 
the supremacy of Rome as the religious capital of 
the West. To begin with, the idea of the eternity 
of the city was firmly implanted in the minds of all 
who had come under her marvelous sway. The 
name of Rome stood for all that was imposing, 
mighty, and enduring in earthly power. Under 
the magic of this enthralling spell of a name the bar- 
barians themselves came when they poured into the 
plains of Italy out of the frozen North. This tem- 
poral authority and power of ancient association af- 
forded a basis for a spiritual dominion as extensive 
and more pervasive — which the succession of illus- 
trious, imperially-minded potentates, whom we are 
now to study, were not slow to create. But such a 
spiritual dominion would never have been erected 
had there been no cause beyond this. A cathedral is 
not built because there happens to be a good foun- 
dation prepared for it amid the ruins of a heathen 
temple. If there is a cause for a Christian edifice, 
the heathen foundation is a favoring provision. 
Christendom in the then state of society seemed 
to require an ecclesiastical head — a supreme au- 
thority upon earth. This was not provided for by 
the ecumenical councils, for they were irregular in 
occurrence; there was no general government of 
the Church. But of such government there was 
a deeply felt and general need. The prelates of 
different sees were in continual rivalry, ofttimes 
in open strife. One invisible Head they all recog- 



no The Church of the Fathers. 

nized— theoretically at least — but a visible Church 
on earth requires a visible head on earth. 

There was much besides what has been indi- 
cated to favor the bishop of Rome. The primacy 
of St. Peter among the apostles, and the belief that 
the see of Rome was of his founding, early pos- 
sessed the mind of the Church. Hence the suc- 
cessor of St. Peter easily came to be, according 
to the theory of apostolic succession through the 
bishops, the inheritor of his authority; and soon 
from the rank of primacy he rose, by sure devel- 
opment of influence, to supremacy. 

The occupants of the episcopal chair at Rome, 
it is notable, were for the most part men of ex- 
traordinary administrative ability. This was their 
racial inheritance. The Roman see, in conse- 
quence, possessed a dignity, founded upon its high 
antiquity, its regularity of succession, and the em- 
inence of its bishop, which did not belong to any 
other possible candidate in the West. 

Again, the rivalry of the great eastern bishoprics 
— Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria — advanced 
the honor of Rome. For not unfrequently in their 
zealous controversies they appealed to her for a 
decision, and continually therefore courted her 
favor. Likewise the provinces — Spain, Gaul, Af- 
rica, and others— had each their quarrels to arbi- 
trate, and circumstances favored Rome, since even 
then all roads led there, as umpire. The seven- 
hilled city therefore succeeded herself as the mis- 
tress of the world . As her temporal power sank into 



Ecclesiastical Organization. in 

the decrepitude of age, her spiritual power rose in 
the vigor of a youth renewed like the eagle's. 

A few historical facts will indicate the rise of 
Roman pretensions. Pope Victor (189-199) threat- 
ened the entire Eastern Church with excommuni- 
cation. Pope Callistus (217-222) was called "Pon- 
tifex Maximus " by Tertullian, by which was indi- 
cated the idea that the bishop of Rome was high 
priest of the empire. Pope Stephen (254-257), on 
the basis of the primacy of St. Peter, " the first 
bishop of Rome," set up claims to universal 
control over the whole Church — but premature- 
ly, for they were successfully resisted. To Pope 
Julius the Council of Sardica in 344 (or 347) con- 
ferred by canons the authority of settling appeals 
in case of the retrial of a bishop. The Roman see 
was thereby recognized as the court of final appeal 
in the Church. Innocent the Great (401-417) was 
the first to assert and maintain a universal authori- 
ty. Born at Albano, in Roman territory, he was a 
Roman in character, bold, imperious, and conquer- 
ing. Not less also was he saintly in life. He was 
exactly such a man as the conjunction of events 
and conditions required to advance the episcopal 
chair to the dignity of an imperial throne. He 
assumed authority over all the provinces. In the 
management of the affairs of the Church he com- 
bined the tact of the politician with the wisdom of 
the statesman . A superior faculty for organization , 
the Roman genius for law and government, con- 
duced to the elevation of Rome to supremacy. 



112 The Church of the Fathers. 

Disaster itself favored the advancement of 
Rome. When the Goths, under Alaric, captured 
and sacked the city, it was pagan Rome only that 
was destroyed. She rose from her ashes a Chris- 
tian Rome. And her bishop had gained in power. 
Potent as was the character and influence of In- 
nocent, a successor, after an interval, in the papal 
chair, was even more eminent and powerful. The 
pontificate of Leo the Great (440-461) constitutes 
an epoch in the history of the Church. Like In- 
nocent, a Roman of the antique type, ambitious 
and imperious, asserting that, as seemed true, 
Rome's temporal dominion was but the type and 
preparation of her greater spiritual dominion, he 
used every opportunity with far-seeing wisdom to 
exalt her power. 

The edict of Valentinian, A.D. 347, declared that 
the decree of the bishop of Rome should be law ; 
and upon this legal basis Leo asserted his suprem- 
acy over the Roman provinces. A favoring circum- 
stance was the fact of a dearth of able men during 
his time: there was no one to contest his claims. 
He was the man required to fulfill the tendency of 
history. Basing his claim to authority upon the 
theory of the perpetual continuance of St. Peter 
as chief of the apostles, he carried his authority 
either in person or by delegation into every Roman 
province and ruled like an emperor. " The care 
of the universal Church should converge toward 
St. Peter's one seat, and nothing anywhere should 
be separated from its head." So he writes in one 



Ecclesiastical Organization. 113 

of his letters. The various heresies which his in- 
fluence was needed to put down or check gave 
him his opportunities. With the abilities of a 
statesman he availed himself of every advantage 
thus offered to elevate the power of Rome. " There 
is no part of the policy of the future papacy," 
says Professor Emerton, " which we do not see 
clearly outlined in the work of Leo." 

It must not be supposed that this growth of ec- 
clesiasticism took place without opposition . There 
were two stupendous protests, organized and gen- 
eral: they were, first, Montanism, and then Mo- 
nasticism. 

At a time when the original spirit of Christian- 
ity, its zeal for daily newness of life and for com- 
munion with the living God, and for the perpetual 
power of the Holy Ghost, seemed waning, and 
the spirit of Churchianity and of elaborate formal- 
ism and of sacerdotalism was entering in, then oc- 
curred the inevitable — a reaction. Montanus, a 
resident of Asia Minor, in the latter part of the 
second century, led it and gave the movement his 
name. The Montanists were an extremely ascetic 
and puritanical sect, and inclined to fanaticism. 
Their distinguishing doctrinal attitude may be 
summed up in the one w r ord supernaturalism. 
They believed the Paraclete inspired them with 
new and fuller revelations of truth. By their ex- 
pectation of the speedy coming of Christ they 
originated a commotion which disturbed the whole 
Church — in Africa, where such eminent men as 
8 



114 The Church of the Fathers. 

Tertullian and Cyprian took up with it, and at 
Rome, where it found numerous adherents. The 
earliest synods of the Church were called in order 
to put down the madness, as it was deemed. 

The success of these synods increased the dig- 
nity and power of the bishops and strengthened 
ecclesiasticism. Montanism taught the doctrine 
of a universal priesthood of believers; the Catho- 
lic Church opposed to this a strict theory of a lim- 
ited priesthood, and so strengthened sacerdotal- 
ism. By this movement, which in its origin had 
justification and, if it had been sanely restrained 
and guided, might have done much good, cer- 
tain permanent effects resulted: first, thereafter 
prophecy and special revelations were distrust- 
ed; secondly, greater emphasis was laid upon the 
historical Christ and a closed canon of Scripture ; 
thirdly, the importance of a compacter Church or- 
ganization was emphasized. 

To the second protest, Monasticism, an entire 
chapter will later on be devoted. Montanism was 
a premonition ; the spirit and potency of the later 
institution, the protest and the aspiration, were in 
it, foreboding final victory. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

i. Renan's Hibbert Lectures (1880), on "The Influence of 
the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome on Christian- 
ity and the Development of the Catholic Church," is in that 
writer's well-known able manner. The style is that of a poet, 
the reasoning is that of a philosopher. 

2. Hatch's Bampton Lectures (1880), on "The Organization 
of the Early Christian Church," is probably the best single vol- 
ume on the subject 



THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE. 



"No; they have not labored in vain, those great founders, 
those reformers, those prophets of every age, who have pro- 
tested against the delusive evidence of a fatality which closes 
us round, who have dashed themselves against the wall of a 
gross materialism, who have given their life for the accom- 
plishment of a mission which the spirit of their age laid upon 
them. . . . 

" Something assures me that he who, hardly knowing why, 
has, out of simple nobleness of nature, chosen for himself in 
this world the essentially unproductive function of doing good 
is the truly wise man, and has discerned, with more sagacity 
than the egotist, the legitimate employment of life." — Rdnan, 
(116) 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE. 

11 Imperium in imperio." 

"The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." 

i. Persecutions. 
Early in the thought of the Christians the em- 
peror of Rome came to be identified with the 
fourth beast in Daniel — the ten-horned beast, 
' ' whose teeth were of iron and his nails of brass," 
and who should " wear out the saints of the Most 
High." He was the Antichrist, the embodiment 
and representative of all that opposed the king- 
dom of God in the world — -"the man of sin, . . . 
he that opposeth and exalte th himself against all 
that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that 
he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself 
forth as God." So he was described by St. Paul 
in his second letter to the Thessalonians. And a 
generation or more later, John in his Apocalypse 
depicted him as a monster coming up out of the 
bottomless pit, and with terrible force pronounced 
his doom from heaven. Good reasons existed for 
this burning hatred of the empire during the first 
two and a half centuries of Christian history. 
There are commonly enumerated ten great perse- 
cutions, as follows: (i)UnderNero, 54-68; (2) Do- 
mitian, 81-96; (3) Trajan, 98-117; (4) Marcus 

(«7> 



n8 The Church of the Fathers. 

Aurelius, 161-180; (5) Septimius Severus, 193-^ 
211; (6) Maximinus, 235-238; (7) Decius, 249- 
2 53; (8) Valerian, 253-260; (9) Aurelian, 270- 
275; (10) Diocletian, 303-311. 

These persecutions were not all equally severe 
or extended. Those of Nero, Domitian, Decius, 
and Diocletian were the greatest. The history 
of this period of suffering and of struggle for life 
and mastery will now engage our attention. First, 
some remarks on the Roman government's gen- 
eral attitude toward alien cults must be premised. 
The Roman religion, it must be understood, was 
a national affair. In its final and consummate 
significance it meant the worship of Rome and of 
the emperor. To these incense was burned and 
sacrifices were offered. To these and for these 
prayers were made. The emperor was " dominus 
et deus noster" to all loyal Romans; before his 
death he was apotheosized and called "divine." 

Now, this fact of the national and political na- 
ture of the Roman religion determined the attitude 
of the government toward foreign faiths. If any 
society, club, or collegium of any sort aroused 
suspicions of fostering conspiracy or dangerous 
and revolutionary principles, it was suppressed. 
The restriction went even further. If public mor- 
als and the social order seemed to be menaced, 
that was sufficient ground for suppression. That, 
therefore, religious tolerance was unlimited in 
Rome was a mistaken idea. In those days of 
threatening anarchy, every strange cult was eyed 



The Church and the Empire. 119 

by the government with keen suspicion. For 
moral reasons, the Bacchic societies were sup- 
pressed B.C. 188. The Jews were expelled from 
Rome B.C. 139, because of their exclusive, stern, 
and aggressive monotheistic worship. The cult 
of the Egyptian Isis was put down B.C. 58 and 
50, for reasons of public order and safety. There 
were many stringent laws against the innumer- 
able collegia^ or fraternities, of the time, designed 
to prevent their assuming political aspects. 

Therefore when the Christians appeared in 
Rome, restricting laws were already in existence, 
and needed only to be enforced if any danger 
seemed to lurk in their practices or doctrines. 
And such danger was not long in evincing itself. 
The Christians seemed to be nihilistic, inasmuch 
as they received slave converts, practiced com- 
munism, refused to take the military oath, stood 
aloof from trade, business, and public office, and, 
most heinous and crowning offense, declined to 
burn incense to the emperor's statue. In one 
word, they were "atheists." The hating Jews 
fed Roman suspicion. They charged the Chris- 
tians with the foulest and most execrable crimes. 
Two of these are much spoken of in the literature 
of the time, and a most pathetic interest attaches to 
them. In the euphemistic language of the period, 
these crimes were called " Thyestean feasts" and 
"GEdipodean marriages." To understand what 
was meant, it is enough to be reminded that to Thy- 
estes his own son was served up in a feast prepared 



120 The Church of the Fathers, 

for him by his brother Atreus; and that GEdipus, 
in the myth, unknowingly wedded his own mother. 
To understand what gave suggestions for such hid- 
eous charges, it is only necessary, for the first, to 
reflect on the language used in the Lord's Supper 
concerning the flesh and blood of the Son of God ; 
and for the second, to remember that those who 
daily called themselves "brothers" and "sisters" 
in Christ joined in wedlock. Strange as it may 
seem to us, the apologists had to defend the inno- 
cent Christians against the charge of these unnat- 
ural crimes. 

In the remarkable romance of Sienkiewicz, "Quo 
Vadis," the first great persecution of the Chris- 
tians by the inhuman Nero is graphically and al- 
most too terribly detailed, but probably within the 
bounds of truth. They were known to the gov- 
ernment up to this time only as a small, fanatical, 
and most peculiar sect, of anti-social tendencies and 
atheistic doctrines. The consequential fact was 
that the vulgus^ who loved the bloody spectacle of 
the arena, hated the Christians. Nero, the incar- 
nation of the brutalized mind of the age, burned 
the city for a spectacle, and then permitted the 
charge to fall upon the Christians because it saved 
himself and gratified the Jews and the Roman rab- 
ble. They were convicted, not on proofs, but on 
the general charge of odium generis humani : " ha- 
tred of the human race ! " 

Thenceforth these "haters of the human race" 
were outlaws and brigands, subject to continual po- 



The Church and the Empire. 121 

lice surveillance and under condemnation for the 
Name. From the year 64, then, it may be said that 
persecution, like a forest fire, burned for two hun- 
dred and fifty years against the Christians; now 
with raging and almost all-consuming conflagration, 
now with smoldering dull heat that was concealed 
only to gather new destructive force ; now in one 
part of the empire, now in another; always some- 
where the dun smoke or the lurid flames rose to 
heaven, until the " time and times and a half time " 
of Daniel were fulfilled. 

Paul and Peter, it is supposed, suffered martyr- 
dom in the first Neronian persecution. The sec- 
ond persecution was begun about A.D. 95, and it 
is of this that the Apocalypse probably speaks. It 
was instigated for political reasons. Less blood- 
thirsty than Nero, Domitian chose to banish rather 
than kill. John's banishment to Patmos probably 
occurred at this time. 

The condition in the reign of Trajan is disclosed 
by the correspondence which took place between 
this emperor and Pliny the Younger, who was gov- 
ernor of Bithynia. These famous letters, which 
passed about A.D. 111, are as follows. Pliny 
writes : 

"It is my custom, my lord, to refer to thee all 
questions concerning which I am in doubt ; for who 
can better direct my hesitation or instruct my ig- 
norance? I have never been present at judicial 
examinations of the Christians ; therefore I am 
ignorant how and to what extent it is customary 



122 The Church of the Fathers. 

to punish or to search for them. And I have hesi- 
tated greatly as to whether any distinction should 
be made on the ground of age, or whether the 
weak should be treated in the same way as the 
strong; whether pardon should be granted to the 
penitent, or he who has ever been a Christian gain 
nothing by renouncing it ; whether the mere name, 
if unaccompanied with crimes, or crimes associated 
with the name, should be punished. Meanwhile, 
with those who have been brought before me as 
Christians I have pursued the following course. I 
have asked them if they were Christians, and if 
they have confessed, I have asked them a second 
and third time, threatening them with punishment ; 
if they have persisted, I have commanded them to 
be led away to punishment. For I did not doubt 
that whatever that might be which they confessed, 
at any rate pertinacious and inflexible obstinacy 
ought to be punished. There have been others 
afflicted with like insanity, who as Roman citizens 
I have decided should be sent to Rome. In the 
course of the proceedings, as commonly hap- 
pens, the crime was extended, and many varieties 
of cases appeared. An anonymous document was 
published containing the names of many persons. 
Those who denied that they were or had been Chris- 
tians I thought ought to be released, when they had 
followed my example in invoking the gods and offer- 
ing incense and wine to thine image — which I had 
for that purpose ordered brought with the images 
of the gods — and when they had besides cursed 



The Church and the JSmpzre. 123 

Christ; things which they say that those who are 
truly Christians cannot be compelled to do. Others, 
accused by an informer, first said that they were 
Christians and afterwards denied it, saying that 
they had indeed been Christians, but had ceased to 
be — some three years, some several years, and one 
even twenty years before. All adored thine im- 
age and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ. 
Moreover, they affirmed that this was the sum of 
their guilt and error; that they had been accus- 
tomed to come together on a fixed day before day- 
light, and to sing responsively a song unto Christ 
as God; and to bind themselves with an oath, not 
with a view to the commission of some crime, but, 
on the contrary, that they would not commit theft, 
nor robbery, nor adultery; that they would not 
break faith, nor refuse to restore a deposit when 
asked for it. When they had done these things, 
their custom was to separate and to assemble 
again to partake of a meal, common, yet harmless 
(which is not of the characteristic of a nefarious 
superstition) ; but this they had ceased to do after 
my edict, in which, according to thy demands, I 
had prohibited fraternities. I therefore consid- 
ered it the more necessary to examine, even with 
the use of torture, two female slaves who were 
called deaconesses (mznzstrce), in order to ascer- 
tain the truth. But I found nothing except a su- 
perstition depraved and immoderate ; and there- 
fore, postponing further inquiry, I have turned to 
thee for advice. For the matter seems to me worth 



124 The Church of the Fathers. 

consulting about, especially on account of the num- 
ber of persons involved. For many of every age 
and of every rank and of both sexes have been 
already and will be brought to trial. For the 
contagion of this superstition has permeated not 
only the cities, but also the villages and even 
the country districts. Yet it can apparently be 
arrested and corrected. At any rate, it is cer- 
tainly a fact that the temples, which were almost 
deserted, are now beginning to be frequented, 
and the sacred rites, which were for a long 
time interrupted, to be resumed, and fodder for 
the victims to be sold, for which previously hard- 
ly a purchaser w r as to be found. From which it 
is easy to gather how great a multitude of men 
may be reformed if there is given a chance for 
repentance." 

The reply of Trajan— commonly called "Tra- 
jan's Rescript " — reads as follows: 

' i Thou hast followed the right course, my Secun- 
dus, in treating the cases of those who have been 
brought before thee as Christians. For no fixed 
rule can be laid down which shall be applicable to 
all cases. They are not to be searched for ; if they 
are accused and convicted, they are to be punished ; 
nevertheless, with the proviso that he who denies 
that he is a Christian, and proves it by his act — 
/. e., by making supplication to our gods — al- 
though suspected in regard to the past, may by re- 
pentance obtain pardon. Anonymous accusations 
ought not to be admitted in any proceedings; for 



The Church and the Empire. 125 

they are of most evil precedent, and are not in ac- 
cord with our age." 

The emperor's rescript, it must be conceded, 
is characterized, for those times, by leniency and 
wisdom. Pliny's letter is a most valuable histor- 
ical document, as revealing the customs of the 
Christian worshipers in that period. Under An- 
toninus Pius (138-161), to whom apologies were 
addressed, as we have seen, Polycarp suffered 
martyrdom at Smyrna. Under Marcus Aurelius, 
his adopted son and successor, persecution was 
severe in Gaul at Lyons and Vienne. Of this 
great trial the Gallic churches sent out an account 
to the churches in Asia, relating how great and ter- 
rible was their tribulation, and how nobly the many 
sufferers bore witness to Christ. Two illustrious 
examples must be presented as this letter, which 
Eusebius gives us, describes them. The first is of 
the heroism of a young woman, " through whom 
Christ showed that things which appear mean and 
obscure and despicable to men are with God of 
great glory. . . . For," the narrative continues, 
"while we all trembled, and her earthly mistress, 
who was herself also one of the witnesses, feared 
that on account of the weakness of her body she 
would be unable to make bold confession, Blan- 
dina [this was the heroine's name] was filled with 
such power as to be delivered and raised above 
those who were torturing her by turns from morn- 
ing till evening in every manner, so that they ac- 
knowledged that they were conquered, and could 



126 The Church of the Fathers. 

do nothing more to her. And they were astonished 
at her endurance, as her entire body was mangled 
and broken; and they testified that one of these 
forms of torture was sufficient to destroy life, not 
to speak of so many and great sufferings. But the 
blessed woman, like a noble athlete, renewed her 
strength in her confession; and her comfort and 
her recreation and relief from the pain of her suf- 
ferings were in exclaiming, < I am a Christian, and 
there is nothing vile done by us. 9 " 

The second example of heroism is of the aged 
bishop of Lyons, " the blessed Pothinus." " He 
was more than ninety years of age/' runs the ac- 
count, "and very infirm, scarcely indeed able to 
breathe because of physical weakness ; but he was 
strengthened by spiritual zeal through his earnest 
desire for martyrdom. Though his body was worn 
out by old age and disease, his life was preserved 
that Christ might triumph in it. When he was 
brought by the soldiers to the tribunal, accom- 
panied by the civil magistrates and a multitude 
who shouted against him in every manner as if he 
were Christ himself, he bore noble witness. Be- 
ing asked by the governor, ' Who is the God of 
the Christians?' he replied, ' If thou art worthy, 
thou shalt know.' Then he was dragged away 
harshly, and received blows of every kind. Those 
near him struck him with their hands and feet, re- 
gardless of his age ; and those at a distance hurled 
at him whatever they could seize ; all of them think- 
ing that they would be guilty of great wickedness 



The Church mid the Empire. 127 

and impiety if any possible abuse were omitted. 
For thus they thought to avenge their own deities. 
Scarcely able to breathe, he was cast into prison, 
and died after two days." 

Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius were Stoic 
philosophers, moralists of the noblest ancient type, 
men of high and commanding ideals, and rulers 
of eminent justness and wisdom. Verily, they 
must have thought they were doing God service 
in permitting their governors — for by their subal- 
terns it was done — thus to persecute their truest 
subjects. On no other ground can it be accounted 
for. 

Under Septimius Severus the persecution was 
especially severe in Egypt and Africa. It was 
then Pantsenus was driven out of Alexandria, and 
Leonidas, the father of Origen, was first impris- 
oned, then killed. Conversion to Judaism and to 
Christianity was forbidden. The Church was per- 
mitted legal existence only as a burial society. 

Alexander Severus was tolerant. His house- 
hold contained several Christians. In his palace 
he had busts of Abraham and of Christ alongside 
of Hercules and Orpheus. Julia Mammaea, his 
mother, was attracted by the renown of Origen, 
and had him visit her at Antioch . She may secret- 
ly have been a Christian. 

The most general persecution, up to that time, 
was under Decius. The Church, although its re- 
ligion was illicit^ had for some years enjoyed 
peace, had grown with wonderful rapidity, and 



128 The Church of the Fathers. 

had become a consolidated and powerful organi- 
zation, " an empire within the empire," a new 
regime threatening with destruction the ancient 
government. The weakness of the aged empire 
was growing more and more manifest. From the 
outside, moreover, it was menaced by hordes of 
northern barbarians. The forces of the empire 
must be united. To effect this, Christianity, the 
one opposing power within, must be uprooted. 
Decius set himself thoroughly to the task. Com- 
mittees of examination were appointed, and in- 
formers became diligent. Bishops were the first 
to suffer. The church at Rome was for sixteen 
months without a bishop. Many Christians of 
every grade suffered martyrdom — many fell away. 
They were required to renounce Christ, and burn 
incense to the emperor. Having done this, they 
were given a certificate of the fact. Those who 
fell away through fear and weakness were called 
the lapsi or " lapsed " ; and those who bought a 
certificate (libellus)^ as many did, instead of burn- 
ing incense, were called the libellatici. They 
were classed as " lapsed " just as though they had 
performed the heathen act. Likewise there were 
two classes of the faithful as of the unfaithful. 
They were confessors and martyrs. The con- 
fessors were those who bore witness by sufferings 
— by any trial short of death — to the steadfastness 
of their faith; the martyrs were witnesses — for 
such is the meaning of the Greek word — by their 
death. The three most conspicuous figures in the 



The Church and the Empire. 129 

Church at this time were Novatian at Rome, Cyp- 
rian at Carthage, and Origen at Caesarea. 

One of the most serious troubles that ever dis- 
tressed the early Church concerned the readmis- 
sion of the 6 ' lapsed." Two parties, one advocat- 
ing a strict, the other a mild, course, arose. Op- 
posing bishops were chosen at Rome, and the 
Church was rent by a division that seemed ir- 
reconcilable. The milder policy prevailed in 
time, and the stricter sect, who were called No- 
vatians from their leader — a sort of puritan com- 
pany in the ancient Church— ceased to be of con- 
sequence. The practice of penance, however, 
received from the terms of readmission a note- 
worthy impulse. A four-years' course of disci- 
pline, divided into as many stages, was imposed 
upon the unfaithful who sought restoration. The 
first year they were entreaters, and were admitted 
no further than to the outer court of the church, 
where they besought the prayers of those who en- 
tered in. The second year they were auditors^ or 
hearers only of the preaching and the reading, after 
which they were required to leave. The third 
year they were permitted to remain during the 
prayer following the sermon ; and the fourth year 
they might remain standing at the administration 
of the eucharist. The penitential system of the 
Church had its beginning thus early, and from these 
conditions. 

Valerian was at first tolerant, but became hos- 
tile. The weakening of the empire was the cause 
9 



130 The Church of the Fathers* 

of his change of attitude; he desired to unite all 
forces against foreign enemies. By statutory law 
Christianity became a crime. Cyprian and Origen 
experienced martyrdom. 

A period of peace nearly fifty years in duration 
ensued, and the Church flourished as never before. 
Eusebius confesses it to be beyond his ability to 
describe with what glory and freedom the word 
of God was honored among all men, both Greeks 
and barbarians. But as a divine judgment, in his 
estimation, when the Christians "fell into laxity 
and sloth, and envied and reviled each other, . . . 
rulers assailing rulers with words as spears, and 
people forming parties against people," then per- 
secution, more dire and determined than ever be- 
fore, put forth its last, its mightiest effort. For 
eighteen years Diocletian had let the Church pur- 
sue its course in peace — what peace its own inter- 
nal dissensions permitted to it. In the year 303 
he raised the most terrible persecution in all parts 
of the empire. Eusebius describes it all — for it 
occurred in his own time — province by province. 
Thousands of men, women, and children in every 
land endured torments beyond belief, and won 
victory at last in flames or upon the cross, " despis- 
ing the present life for the sake of the teachings 
of our Saviour." 

2. The Catacombs. 

At Rome a peculiar and interesting record of 
these trying years and centuries yet remains writ- 
ten in the everlasting hills. 



The Church and the Empire. 131 

Accustomed to meet at the graves of their mar- 
tyrs to' commemorate their victorious death, or, 
as they viewed it, their entrance upon life, the 
Christian worshipers in the time of these persecu- 
tions found no refuge at once so secure and so 
congenial to them as the catacombs. And these 
during a period of nearly three centuries became 
to them, therefore, not only their city of the 
dead, but as much their city of the living. They 
dwelt and worshiped, they prayed and sang and 
kept their festivals, and at last were laid to rest, in 
this place of tombs ; so that the catacombs have 
been expressively called "the Pompeii of early 
Christianity. " What are the catacombs like, and 
what is their history? — a question to whose an- 
swer pages should be given where I can give but 
sentences. 

In the porous strata of volcanic rock, rising into 
low hills outside the walls of Rome along the Ap- 
pian Way, was discovered, scarcely a century and a 
half ago, a network of subterranean galleries, es- 
timated to have a combined length of three hun- 
dred or four hundred miles. Along these galler- 
ies there have been found over seventy thousand 
tombs, while the whole number is estimated as 
high as three millions. Blocked up in time by 
Roman soldiers, and covered by the drifting 
sands of the Campagna for fourteen centuries, the 
very existence of this Pompeii was unknown. 
Now it is made to illuminate the darkest chapters 
of Christian history. As every visitor to Rome 



132 The Church of the Fathers. 

goes to the catacombs, let us with an interpreter 
enter one of the underground galleries and see 
some of the earliest tombs of the Christian believ- 
ers. We shall find chapels and love-feast rooms 
and chambers where bishops of the hunted flock 
passed their lives; we shall also find vaults where 
Jews and pagans were laid to rest, and such an 
inscription as this will plainly declare the fact: 
"Once I was not; now I am not; I know nothing 
about it, and it is no concern of mine." This is 
the agnosticism and apathy and utter despair 
which possessed that part of the pagan world 
that rejected the higher truth which had ap- 
peared. On the Christian tombs we shall find in- 
scriptions quite different in tone. A few exam- 
ples will suffice to show their general character. 
Of most frequent occurrence are such as these: 
"He rests in peace"; "He has gone to God " ; 
66 Reposing in the peace of God " ; " Gone before 
us in peace." Simplicity of faith could hardly 
surpass its manifestation here. No addition could 
strengthen or adorn the assurance these brief epi- 
taphs express. 

A like faith and equal simplicity characterize 
the pictures which are rudely drawn upon the 
walls. The scenes, as might be expected, are 
usually taken from the Bible, but not exclusively 
so; for along with scenes representing Adam and 
Eve, Noah and the ark, Abraham and Isaac, Jo- 
_iah and the whale, etc., are also characters and 
scenes from pagan mythology, such as Orpheus 



The Church and the Empire. 13J 

playing on his lyre, with the savage beasts around 
tamed by his strains to docility— a symbolical rep- 
resentation of Christ and the power of his harmo- 
nious word ; also of Psyche and Bacchus and Her- 
cules, each symbolizing some characteristic of the 
gospel or of Christ. But most frequent in occur- 
rence and of greatest significance is the figure of 
the Good Shepherd. Theirs was "the religion," 
says Dean Stanley, " of the Good Shepherd. The 
kindness, the courage, the grace, the love, the 
beauty of the Good Shepherd were to them, if we 
may say so, prayer book, articles, creed, and can- 
ons, all in one. They looked on that figure, and 
it conveyed to them all they wanted." 

It must be confessed that from the simplicity 
and sweetness of this all-sufficient faith to the 
Thirty-nine Articles, or even to the Athanasian 
creed, there is a long call. This Good Shepherd 
is commonly represented as bearing a lamb upon 
his shoulders, symbolical of his bringing the one 
lost to earth into his heavenly fold. In some in- 
stances, however, instead of a lamb, or sheep, 
upon his shoulders, it is a kid or a goat he bears — 
a fact which Matthew Arnold shows us the sig- 
nificance of in a forcible sonnet: 

He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save. 



So spoke the fierce Tertullian. But she sigh'd — 
The infant Church! of love she felt the tide 
Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave, 
And then she smiled; and in the catacombs, 
With eye suffused but heart inspired, true, 



134 The Church of the Fathers. 

She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew, 
And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. 

Another symbol of common occurrence is that 
with which the Christian Ligeia in "Quo Vadis" 
puzzled her pagan lover, namely, the fish — the let- 
ters of which, in Greek, are the initials of "Jesus 
Christ, Son of God, Saviour/' (Ichthus.) This, 
too, is a complete confession of faith for the early 
Church. 

Of more frequent occurrence, however, and of 
even greater expressiveness, is the vine which, with 
rich clusters of its fruit, sometimes spreads over the 
entire f omb. What symbol could be more power- 
fully and broadly suggestive? Based probably 
upon the parable in the Gospel of John, it is not 
only an expression of faith in the Vine, of which 
all believers are branches, but of the luxuriance, 
joyousness, and fruitfulness of the Christian life, 
and also of its unity, consistent with endless va- 
riety. 

To the catacombs we may go to learn what was 
the essential faith and what were the fundamental 
doctrines of life of the early Church. And much 
more than this: we discover here the beginnings 
of Christian art, and gather much therefrom re- 
garding the attitude and habit of mind of those 
whose religion was that of the Good Shepherd, 
and whose symbol of life was the wide-spreading 
and fruit-laden vine. In these gloomy vaults all 
that is written or pictured is cheerful and joyous. 



The Church and the Empire. 135 

Not skeletons and death-heads, not torments and 
cypresses, but wreaths of roses, pastoral scenes, 
children playing, and good angels; no cross or 
crucifix, but the Good Shepherd with a staff in 
one hand while the other holds secure the sheep 
he is taking to the fold. Sometimes with the harp 
in his hand, sometimes surrounded by the three 
Graces, he is always beautiful as "the youthful 
Apollo playing on his pipes to the flocks of Ad- 
metus." 

Much that is here, it is true, is pagan under a 
Christian disguise ; but classic paganism was uni- 
formly cheerful, and its myths are rich in the sug- 
gestion of universal truths and always beautiful. 
Mercury and the ram in Greek worship may have 
suggested the use of the Good Shepherd and his 
sheep as a Christian symbol; Dionysus and the 
vine, so joyously celebrated in the natural religion 
of the pagans, perhaps suggested the use of the 
same as a Christian symbol. 

All this reveals, furthermore, how the heathen 
worshipers were made to accept and feel at home in 
the new religion. Of the catacombs and their sig- 
nificance in general let Dr. Martineau speak in his 
beautiful way: "There the evergreen leaf protests 
in sculptured silence that the winter of the grave 
cannot touch the saintly soul; the blossoming 
branch speaks of vernal suns beyond the snows of 
this chill world ; the Good Shepherd shows from 
his benign looks that the mortal way, so terrible 
to nature, had become to those Christians as the 



136 The Church of the Fathers. 

meadow-path between the grassy slopes and be- 
side the still waters." 

3. Imperial Power. 

During all these years the growth of Christian- 
ity was no less than marvelous. It is impossible 
now to estimate either the number of churches or 
the number of members. But as we know that her 
martyrs are counted by thousands, the Church's 
members must have been counted by hundreds 
of thousands. This rapidity of growth is account- 
ed for by many causes and conditions. The age 
in which Christianity appeared was prepared for 
it and needed it, notwithstanding that the fight 
made against its progress seems to oppose this fact. 
"Through ignorance " they did it, as the Jews be- 
fore slew the Prince of Life. 

There was evidenced by many facts a general 
revival of religious feeling among pagans. The 
syncretism of cults was tending toward monothe- 
ism. Worship was being spiritualized, and moral 
elevation was coming to be its end. Union with 
God, an inner and vital relation of harmonious in- 
tercourse, was becoming more and more the aspi- 
ration of the soul. A revelation of his will was 
therefore sought after; a present deity, above all, 
was demanded — a deity who should heal the afflic- 
tions of humanity and redeem men from their sin. 
The worship of Mithras and the cult of ^Escula- 
pius, who was a healing deity, express the mani- 
fest longings of the age. The ethical character, 



The Church and the Empire. 137 

which was rising to chief importance in religion, 
was exemplified most completely in the Eleusinian 
mysteries of Greece. The ceremonial of these 
began with the proclamation: "Let no one enter 
here whose hands are not clean and whose tongue 
is not prudent." Then confession and repentance 
of sin were required. Baptism followed — a bap- 
tism that was regarded as a cleansing and a regen- 
eration. Then a sacrifice for salvation was of- 
fered, and a common meal was eaten. Of the re- 
ligious societies of the time Dr. Hatch writes: 
"The majority of them had the same aims as 
Christianity itself — the aim of worshiping a true 
God, the aim of living a pure life, and the aim of 
cultivating the spirit of brotherhood. They were 
part of a great religious revival which distinguished 
the age." So much alike, indeed, were not only 
their ritual practices, but also the doctrines of 
Christianity and of the Greek worship of Deme- 
ter and Dionysus, that the adherents of each free- 
ly accused the other side of having borrowed or 
stolen. 

Judaism also had prepared the soil in every coun- 
try for the Christian missionary. The proselytes 
won from the Gentile races were especially easy 
converts to the more perfect Judaism — Christianity. 

These were favoring conditions. The causes are 
those factors of ethical doctrine and practice, of 
assured truth, and of spiritual nourishment, which 
Christianity was able to supply to an age in need of 
such. Some five or six causes may be particular- 



138 The Church of the Fathers. 

ized: First, the fervent zeal of Christians, leading 
to extreme self-denial, the most arduous labors, 
and to martyrdom; second, the doctrine of im- 
mortality, and the firm assertion that " life and im- 
mortality" had been brought to light in the person 
of Jesus Christ; third, the attestation of changed 
lives, and of miraculous occurrences through Chris- 
tian agency; fourth, the ethical teachings and the 
pure morality of the lives of Christians; fifth, the 
unity of spirit which they preserved in the bond'of 
peace; sixth, the chief fact of all was that Chris- 
tians were able to lead men to a personal Saviour, 
the embodiment of all they taught, the pledge of 
all they hoped. 

The rise of the Church to supremacy over pa- 
ganism in the empire was not a sudden leap, but 
the slow work of three centuries of bitter and ter- 
rible struggle. At last, when the cross proved it- 
self invincible, it was chosen by the conquered en- 
emy as his battle standard, and the wearer of the 
imperial purple acknowledged the Galilean Peasant 
to be his King. 

The disrupted state of the empire and the inev- 
itable conflict on occasion of the death of the reign- 
ing emperor favored the Christians as a numerous 
and, because thoroughly united, a powerful party; 
so that concessions were likely to be made in con- 
sideration of the vast weight of their influence. 
Constantius died in the year 306, at York in Brit- 
ain, and left the throne to be fought for by several 
contestants. Among these Constantine, his eldest 



The Church and the Em-pire. 139 

son, was the choice of the army, with which, after 
a few years, he marched upon Rome to meet Max- 
entius, who was in the field with another army, to 
make good his claim to authority. Just before 
their meeting, while Constantine was praying for 
victory, as Eusebius relates, there appeared to him 
at midday a vision of the cross in the sky, bearing 
the inscription, Conquer by This. Then, when 
he had gone to rest at night, his thoughts full of the 
strange portent, Christ appeared to him in his sleep 
with the same sign, and commanded him to make 
a standard in its likeness and use it as a safeguard 
in all engagements with his enemies. In the morn- 
ing he called together his craftsmen and had such 
a standard fashioned and adorned with precious 
stones and overlaid with gold. 

The meeting of the armies occurred October 
27th, 312, at Milvian Bridge, on the Tiber. In 
Christian history it is a famous battle, for Constan- 
tine was victorious. In the sign of the cross he 
had conquered. The head of the Roman empire 
was now a . Christian ! 

Constantine's father before him had been friend- 
ly to the Christians, and had done much to im- 
prove conditions for them. He himself was at 
once willing and able to do far more. Even be- 
fore his conversion he issued an edict favoring the 
Church. Now in the year 312 he issued the fa- 
mous Edict of Milan, the most important act of tol- 
eration in the history of Christianity ; for it grant- 
ed and required universal religious liberty — liberty 



±40 The Church of the Fathers. 

not to Christians only, but " to all men freedom to 
follow the religion which they choose ; that what- 
ever heavenly divinity exists," continues the famous 
order, " may be propitious to us and to all who live 
under our government." 

Constantine was the man for the times : discern- 
ing, politic, superstitious; imperious, yet tolerant; 
vain, but far from weak; a man of ideas and of 
action; a statesman and a soldier; a champion of 
the cross, yet half heathen till his death; a build- 
er of Christian churches, yet a worshiper still in 
the pagan Pantheon ; an impartial supporter of or- 
thodoxy, but baptized by an Arian heretic. Such 
was the character of the man who, we say, was 
born for the times, and whom, because of the ex- 
traordinary impress he made upon history for good, 
we rightly call "Great." 

With the sure insight of a statesman, he dis- 
cerned that Christianity was the winning faith 
against an effete paganism, and was therefore to 
be made the ally of the State, and the supporter of 
his dream of Rome's eternal and universal domin- 
ion. Many Christians were in his army when he 
marched against Maxentius, and no doubt the 
cross did contribute to his victory. The well- 
known friendliness of both his father and himself 
to the hitherto persecuted sect caused many of 
them, as he approached Rome, to flock to the 
sacred standard which he raised. As to his su- 
perstitious nature, that was in the family. His 
mother, Helen, reputed finder of the cross of 



The Church and the Empire. 141 

Christ at Jerusalem, was given to making devout 
pilgrimages; Constantius and Constantia, son and 
daughter, were fanatical Arianists; while Julian 
the Apostate, his nephew, was devoted to pagan- 
ism with the greatest fanaticism of all. Constan- 
tine was to the last half a heathen ; he did not re^ 
ceive baptism till upon his deathbed. When he 
gave civil sanction to the Christian's holy day, it 
was as dies Solis — Apollo's day, the Sun's day — 
not dies Domini, the Lord's day. The emperor 
who called and presided over the First Ecumenical 
Council had as high a reverence for Apollo as 
for Christ — for the sun as for the cross, their re- 
spective symbols. Happily for the world, how- 
ever, he saw that, as the dying apostate is said to 
have exclaimed, "the Galilean has conquered." 

Constantine's service to Christianity and to man- 
kind was doubtless all the greater because of his 
mixture — not so incongruous then — of heathenism 
and Christianity. He was thereby the better qual- 
ified to assist in effecting an easy transition of the 
populace from the dying to the conquering faith. 
While not outlawing and attempting to abolish 
paganism outright — which extreme policy would 
have aroused extreme opposition — he every way 
advanced Christianity by means of the imperial 
power. His edicts conferring advantages were 
numerous and important. The clergy were ex- 
empt from military and municipal duties ; obnox- 
ious customs and ordinances were abolished ; the 
emancipation of slaves was facilitated : Christian 



142 The Church of the Fathers. 

bequests to churches were legalized; the Chris- 
tian day of rest and worship was sanctioned; last- 
ly, the emperor gave his son a Christian education. 

It should be mentioned that his removal of the 
seat of civil authority from Rome to Byzantium, 
where he founded the city named after him, Con- 
stantinople^ tended to increase the spiritual and 
ecclesiastical power of the still imperial city by the 
Tiber. Her dominion was not lost, it was not 
diminished; it was universalized, being separated 
and dissociated from its particular hereditary seat. 
When the barbarians came and devastated the city, 
Rome — the power that ruled the world — still sur- 
vived and still ruled. 

Constantine died in the year 337: "Not to be 
imitated or admired," concludes Dean Stanley, 
"but much to be remembered, and deeply to be 
studied." As the first Christian emperor, even 
without such eminent abilities as he undoubtedly 
possessed, he is secure of a high place in univer- 
sal history. Under his banner, the cross of the 
Nazarene Peasant, Christianity rose to be the su- 
preme power in the government of the world. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

" Christianity and the Roman Government," by E. G. Har- 
dy, is a small but very thorough book on the subject of Rome's 
attitude toward Christianity. 



THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. 



" In vain did restless pride, as that of Arius, seek to pagan- 
ize Christianity and make it the ally of imperial despotism; to 
prefer a belief resting on authority and unsupported by an in- 
ward witness, over the clear revelation of which the millions 
might see and feel and know the divine glory; to substitute 
the conception, framed after the pattern of heathenism, of an 
agent, superhuman yet finite, for faith in the ever-continuing 
presence of God with man; to wrong the greatness and sanc- 
tity of the Spirit of God by representing it as a birth of time. 
Against these attempts to subordinate the enfranchising virtue 
of truth to false worship and to arbitrary power, reason asserted 
its supremacy, and the party of superstition was driven from 
the fold. . . . Amid the deep sorrows of humanity during 
the sad conflict which was protracted through centuries for the 
overthrow of the past and the reconstruction of society, the con- 
sciousness of an incarnate God carried peace into the bosom of 
mankind. That faith emancipated the slave, broke the bond- 
age of woman, redeemed the captive, elevated the 'low, lifted 
up the oppressed, consoled the wretched, inspired alike the he- 
roes of thought and the countless masses. The downtrodden 
nations clung to it as to the certainty of their future emancipa- 
tion; and it so filled the heart of the greatest poet of the Mid- 
dle Ages — perhaps the greatest poet of all time — [Dante] that 
he had no prayer so earnest as to behold in the profound and 
clear substance of the eternal light that circling of reflected 
glory which showed the image of man." — Bancroft, 

(H4) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. 

i. Origin. 

Having risen to power in the State, and having 
incorporated in itself, in a large measure, both 
Greek philosophy and Roman government, the 
Church, even in its day of victory, stood in dan- 
ger of disruption and downfall. Triumphant even 
over the empire, it remained to prove whether it 
could govern itself; triumphant over paganism, it 
had yet to determine what should be its own rule 
of faith and doctrinal teachings. The great con- 
troversy now to be given an account of had its 
origin with the very beginning of Christianity, 
and grew as it grew. Its seeds lurked alike in 
the earliest Judaistic and Hellenistic heresies: in 
Ebionism and in Gnosticism ; also in the philo- 
sophic systems which most influenced Christian 
thinkers: Philonism and Nebplatonism. The hu- 
manitarian doctrine of Christ, wherein he was 
given forth as only a man — divine, it is true, pre- 
existent, as all excellent things (the ark, the law, 
the temple) were, in Jewish thought, and sent from 
heaven, yet still only a superior Godlike man — was 
current in the early Church and prevailed with 
many eminent teachers. 

The apologists themselves held views of this 
10 (i45) 



146 The Church of the Father. 

tendency. The saying of Tertullian, the greatest 
of the theologians of his generation, that "time 
was when the Son was not with the Father," in- 
dicates their common thought. And this was a 
primary idea in Arianism. Origen's doctrine of 
an eternal Logos above the apparent Christ — a 
speculation as old at least as Justin Martyr, who 
taught an impersonal Logos in God from the be- 
ginning that became personal only prior to and for 
the purpose of creation— and of Christ's genera- 
tion by the will of God, is also Arianistic. From 
the first of these Christian philosophers, on through 
the series, authority can be found, indeed, for say- 
ings that came under the condemnation of the 
Church a little later. Their general want of con- 
sistency, both severally in themselves and with one 
another, prevents us from saying their influence 
was wholly in this direction ; but, in general, their 
philosophy of Christ as the Logos of God tended to 
Arian conclusions. Their thought of God, as the 
Cause and Creator, and as one and absolute, made 
necessary the conception of another Divine Being as 
subordinate, inferior, and begotten for a purpose — 
which purpose with the apologists was, in general, 
the inspiration of rationality into the created uni- 
verse. Tertullian, with his legal fiction of " person" 
and delegation of duty , based upon the Roman theo- 
ry of office, gives ample room for the doctrine of the 
subordination of the second "person " of the Trin- 
ity. The character of finiteness, furthermore, be- 
longed to the Christ, or Logos, of the apologists. 



The Arian Controversy. 147 

He was able to enter into relation with the finite 
only because he himself was of finite origin. He 
is called a 46 second," "another," and a "visible" 
God. 

To sum up the results of this stage of Christo- 
logical thought, it may be said that there were two 
general conceptions of the person of Jesus Christ 
almost irom the beginning, namely: First, that he 
was one whom God chose and sent into the world 
upon a special mission, whom he tested, and, hav- 
ing found him faithful, adopted as his Son and 
invested with dominion. This view is variously 
called Humanitarian, Dynamic, and Adoptian. It 
finds its authority in the synoptic gospels and in 
the Shepherd of Hermas. It was the common 
view, apparently, at Rome, and was widespread 
in early times. The Artemenites claimed that "all 
the early teachers and the apostles received and 
taught" this doctrine. Secondly, there was the 
so-called Pneumatic view, according to which Je- 
sus was a heavenly being (the Gnostic concep- 
tion), one of many spiritual natures, but next in 
rank to God; that he assumed flesh of the Virgin, 
and, having accomplished his redemptive work, 
returned to his former place with God. The au- 
thority for this conception is found in the Pauline 
and Johannine writings and in the first epistle of 
Clement. Either of these views might have fur- 
nished elements to Arianism. The historical con- 
nection of Arianism with the former view is a cer- 
tainty, although Arianism did not, in the early 



148 The Church of the Fathers. 

stages of its development, advance so far in its ra- 
tionalistic unitarian tendencies as to embrace the 
pure Adoptian or Philanthropic doctrine. Its ten- 
ets were qualified by the Pneumatic Christology. 

Our discussion of Monarchianism brought out 
the fact that there were two branches of the here- 
sy, in sharp, well-defined contrast the one to the 
other; and their opposing doctrines constituted 
the Scylla and Charybdis of the Christian thinker 
of the third century. There seemed to be no es- 
cape from one or the other peril. Setting out with 
the idea of the unity and sole monarchy of God 
in common, the one class, represented in the com- 
plete development of the school by Paul of Samo- 
sata, held to the Adoptian or Humanitarian view of 
Christ; while the other class, represented by Sa- 
bellius, held to Christ's absolute Godhead and com- 
plete identity with the Father* 

It is safe to say that every Christian who indulged 
himself in speculation at all during this period 
found himself, if he thought logically, in danger 
either of Samosatianism or of Sabellianism. Not 
infrequently did some zealous or able Catholic un- 
dertake the defense of the true faith against one or 
the other party of Monarchians, only to find him- 
self accused as a heretic and included in the ranks 
of the other party. The case of Dionysius of Al- 
exandria is notable. A pupil of Origen, he, like 
his master, suggests most forcibly the modern spirit 
and way of thinking. He was, altogether, one of 
the ablest and sanest thinkers of the early Church. 



The Arian Controversy. 149 

Undertaking to correct the Sabellianism of certain 
bishops in upper Libya, he gave such expression 
to the opposing doctrines, which he held from Ori- 
gen, and believed to be Catholic, as caused him to 
be forthwith accused of Samosatianism. The con- 
troversy that ensued is a foreshadowing of that 
which took the name, a half century and more later, 
of one who was born in this same region about this 
very time — Arius. What, then, were the charges 
brought against Dionysius? He was accused of 
maintaining, first, that the Son was created; sec- 
ondly, that he was not eternal; thirdly, that he was 
not coessential with the Father* In general, there- 
fore, he was guilty of his master's error, namely, the 
separation and subordination of the Son ; for Ori- 
gen spoke of the unity of the Father and the Son 
as only a moral, not an essential, unity, and ranked 
the Son as intermediary between God and the uni- 
verse — a "second God," subordinate to the "very 
God," and indeed to the true "eternal Logos." 

The treatment of the difficulty by Dionysius of 
Rome, to whom his defense was made, is the most 
noteworthy fact of the situation. He protests 
against the division of the Sacred Monad into three 
powers, or subsistences, whereby three Gods are 
preached, and insists upon preserving their eter- 
nal union. "For it must needs be," he says, 
"that with the God of the universe the Divine 
Word is united, and the Holy Ghost must repose 
and habitate in God." Each error is taken up 
and dealt with, not as a philosopher dealr with 



150 The Church of the Fathers. 

abstruse problems, but rather as a Roman states- 
man says what " must" be and be done. Without 
having given a logical exposition of the mystery, 
he concludes by saying: "We must believe in 
God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ his 
Son, and in the Holy Ghost, and hold that to the 
God of the universe the Word is united." There 
is here manifestly no solution of the problem at 
all: the fact of a most serious problem demand- 
ing solution is only made more apparent. 

In this controversy between the Dionysii every 
point of the later controversy between Arius and 
Athanasius was anticipated. The very phrases 
which later became the test-words and badges of 
the parties to the strife now came into use: "ho- 
moousios," "There was a time when he was not," 
" He was not before he was begotten," etc. — these 
were the most important throughout this period. 

The part played by one other personage yet re- 
mains for consideration before the controversy 
proper comes distinctly to view. Soon after the 
council of Antioch that condemned Paul (about 
A.D. 268), Lucian appears upon the stage and be- 
gins an important part, as the champion of Paul's 
doctrines. He is one of the most learned men, 
and altogether the most learned teacher, of the 
time. Two of his traits are especially noteworthy. 
Coming from Edessa, the home of Bardesanes, 
where a free and original spirit prevailed, first, he 
had, it is said, a dislike of "the theology of the 
ancients," by which it seems was meant he was 



The Arian Controversy. 151 

reluctant to be bound by the authority of tradi- 
tion; secondly, his study of the Bible was critical 
and his method of interpretation was literal as op- 
posed to the allegorical method. Antioch afford- 
ed a congenial atmosphere. In that region, Juda- 
istic — that is, humanitarian — tendencies of thought 
seem to have been prevalent from early times. 
Paul's "grossly humanitarian" views were ac- 
knowledged to be of Jewish origin. Through Lu- 
cian, therefore, the connection of Arianism with 
the earliest (Judaistic) heresies above referred to 
is plainly made out, and our justification for at- 
tempting to trace the humanitarian and rational- 
istic element in Christological thought through 
each succeeding phase of the history must be 
clear. 

Lucian, as the head of the exegetical and theo- 
logical school of Antioch — a school that rivaled in 
importance the famous catechetical school of Al- 
exandria, while it stood in marked opposition both 
in method and doctrine thereto — exercised an 
overmastering influence upon his numerous dis- 
ciples. He did no less, indeed, than to create a 
doctrinal party whose chief, later on, was Arius, 
himself a pupil of Lucian. "This school," says 
Harnack, "is the nursery of the Arian doctrine, 
and Lucian, its head, is the Arius before Arius." 
From the few extant fragments of Lucian' s writ- 
ings the following doctrines have been derived as 
being taught by him: That God is one, without 
equal and alone uncreated; that he created the 



152 The Church of the Fathers. 

Logos ; that the Son advanced to moral perfec- 
tion and became "Lord." He appears, there- 
fore, to have effected a union of the doctrines of 
Paul and of Origen. These he bequeathed, togeth- 
er with the critical and dialectical method of Aris- 
totle, to that body of disciples who were proud 
to call themselves "fellow-Lucianists," and who 
formed the party of Arius. 

The historical genesis of the heresy can be 
accurately given in the words of Alexander of 
Alexandria: "Ye are not ignorant concerning 
Arianism," he writes to the other churches, "that 
this rebellious doctrine belongs to Ebion and Ar- 
temas, and is in imitation of Paulus of Samosata. 
... . Paulus was succeeded by Lucian. . . . 
Our present heretics have drunk up the dregs of 
their impiety, and are their secret offspring. 9 ' 

2. The Open Conflict. 

Of the outbreak of the Arian controversy sev- 
eral accounts, not entirely consistent with one 
another, are given. Constantine, in an epistle 
written to the chief disputants with a view to their 
reconciliation, gives the following, which may be 
regarded as the earliest: "I understand, then," 
writes the Christian emperor, "that the origin of 
the present controversy is this: When you, Alex- 
ander, demanded of the presbyters what opinion 
they severally maintained respecting a certain 
passage in the divine law — or rather, I should say, 
that you asked them something connected with an 



The Arian Controversy. 153 

unprofitable question — then, you, Arius, inconsid- 
erately insisted on what ought never to have been 
conceived at all, or, if conceived; should have 
been buried in profound silence. Hence it was 
that a dissension arose between you, fellowship 
was withdrawn, and the holy people, rent with di- 
verse parties, no longer preserved the unity of the 
one body." Socrates relates the matter some- 
what differently. " When Alexander was attempt- 
ing one day," so he writes, "in the presence of 
the presbytery and the rest of his clergy, to ex- 
plain, with perhaps too philosophical minuteness, 
that great theological mystery, the unity of the 
holy Trinity *, a certain one of the presbyters under 
his jurisdiction, whose name was Arius, possessed 
of no inconsiderable logical acumen, imagining 
that the bishop was subtly teaching the same view 
of this subject as Sabellius, the Libyan, from 
love of controversy took the opposite opinion to 
that of the Libyan, and, as he thought, vigorously 
responded to what was said by the bishop. " If," 
said he, "the Father begat the Son, he that was 
begotten had a beginning of existence; and from 
this it is evident that there was a time when the 
Son was not. It therefore necessarily follows that 
he had his subsistence from nothing." 

At the time of the beginning of the dissension 
Arius was a presbyter of Alexandria, in charge of 
the church of Beukalis. He was of attractive per- 
sonal address, popular in his parish, and blame- 
less in his character and ascetic in his habits of 



154 The Chwch of the Fathers. 

life. Socrates, as we have seen, attributes to him 
" no inconsiderable logical acumen," and Sozomen 
says he was "a zealous thinker about doctrine" 
and "an expert logician." Born in Libya about 
the year 256, perhaps of Greek parentage, he was 
an old man when he entered the arena for theo- 
logical combat, about A.D. 318. He was no 
doubt led thereto by a genuine zeal for the doc- 
trine of the unity of the Godhead and his demand 
for logical clearness and consistency. A synod 
of nearly one hundred Egyptian and Libyan bish- 
ops, called by Alexander about A.D. 320-321, 
condemned his doctrines and deposed him along 
with others as atheists. From exile Arius wrote 
to his " f ellow-Lucianist and true Eusebius: "He 
[Alexander] has driven us out of the city as athe- 
ists, because we do not concur in what he public- 
ly preaches, namely, ' God always, the Son always ; 
as the Father, so the Son; the Son coexists un- 
begotten with God; he is everlasting; neither 
by thought nor by any interval does God pre- 
cede.' These are impieties to which we cannot 
listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a 
thousand deaths." There is Arius's own pres- 
entation of the case. Proceeding to his friend 
and "f ellow-Lucianist," Eusebius, at Nicomedia, 
he engages actively with his followers in the dis- 
semination of his opinions and in organizing op- 
position to Alexander. On the other hand, "when 
Alexander perceived," writes Sozomen, "that 
many who were revered by the appearance of 



The Arian Controversy. 155 

good conduct and weighty by the persuasiveness 
of eloquence held with the party of Arius, he 
wrote to the bishops of every church, desiring 
them not to hold communion with them." 

The dissension grew apace, spreading rapidly 
till it involved the whole Eastern Church. Synod 
followed synod, but "the evil only became worse." 
The letters of Alexander constitute the best evi- 
dence of the alarm with which the situation was 
viewed. "Many heresies," he writes in an enc} 7 - 
clical, " have arisen before these, which, exceed- 
ing all bounds in daring, have lapsed into complete 
infatuation; but these persons, by attempting in 
all their discourses to subvert the divinity of the 
Word, as having made a nearer approach to Anti- 
christ, have comparatively lessened the odium of 
former ones." Arius at Nicomedia continued ac- 
tive, disseminating his views by epistles among 
the bishops, by songs among the common people. 
"He composed several songs," writes Philostor- 
gius, "to be sung by sailors, and by millers, and 
by travelers along the high road." At this time he 
composed the "Thalia," the character of which 
we know, in a measure, by the description and 
the extracts given by Athanasius. Some sayings 
of the Thalia run as follows: "Equal or like 
himself he alone [God] has none." "The Un- 
begun made the Son a beginning of things, origi- 
nated and advanced him as a Son to himself by 
adoption." "He is not equal, no, nor one in es- 
sence, with him." To the Son the Father is in- 



i$6 The Church of the Fathers. 

visible and ineffable. Still the Son is called " God 
only begotten " and "a strong God." "At God's 
will the Son is what and whatsoever he is.' ' 

3. The First Ecumenical Council. 

By this time " confusion everywhere prevailed." 
The people took up the controversy and became 
divided. "Disputes and contentions arose in ev- 
ery city and in every village concerning theolog- 
ical dogmas." In consequence, " Christianity be- 
came a subject of popular ridicule, even in the 
very theaters." So write Theodoret and Soc- 
rates. 

This confusion was worse confounded by the 
mingling of the Meletians with the Arians, and 
their making common cause against the party in 
power. This sect was strong in the Thebaid — the 
very region where Arianism, so denominated, had 
its orgin. 

It is not to be wondered at, in view of this state 
of general strife, that Constantine, the mighty 
Christian emperor, appeared to be the only one 
on earth capable of being God's minister for the 
healing of the differences. The frequent synods 
— one, at least, of which, that of Bithynia, had de- 
cided in favor of Arius — and numerous conciliatory 
letters on the part of the Arians had accomplished 
nothing. Neither had the mediatory epistle of the 
emperor, above referred to, brought about peace. 
Therefore, to the imperial mind, as counseled by 
the eminent bishop of Cordova (Hosius), there 



The Arian Controversy. 157 

seemed to be but one way left to heal the dissen- 
sion, and that was to call a general council. 

Besides, other disputes were pressing for settle- 
ment. Diversity of opinion and practice concern- 
ing the celebration of the passover prevailed — 
some of the churches, particularly in the East, 
keeping the festival according to the Jewish cus- 
tom, while the Western churches (except the Kel- 
tic) observed it according to the time fixed by 
Easter. A division of the Church into an East- 
ern and Western branch seemed imminent. The 
Meletian schism also called for healing. 

The Christian emperor, solicitous above all 
things for the unity of his empire, proceeded 
(about A.D. 324) to summon a general council. 
Addressing the more prominent bishops individ- 
ually, he summoned them by letter from every 
quarter of the empire to meet him at Nicaea, in 
Bithynia, at an appointed time. To facilitate 
their coming, he allowed to some the means of 
public conveyance and to others he furnished an 
ample supply of beasts of burden. The bishops 
hastened to the appointed place of assemblage, 
attended by their presbyters, deacons, and serv- 
ants. Their number is variously given by our au- 
thorities, no two agreeing, but three hundred and 
eighteen is the accepted number. Eusebius adds 
that, with the presbyters and deacons, " the crowd 
of acolytes and other attendants was altogether 
beyond computation." The representation came 
mostly from the Eastern and African churches, 



158 The Church of the Fathers. 

there being but seven, all told, from the Latin 
churches. It is estimated that those present were 
about one-sixth of the whole number of bishops 
in the empire. The see of Rome was represent- 
ed by two presbyters. The personnel of "the 
great and holy council" is thus described by Eu- 
sebius: "Of these ministers of God, some were 
distinguished by wisdom and eloquence, others by 
the gravity of their lives and by patient fortitude 
of character, while others again united in them- 
selves all these graces." Theodoret speaks of the 
assemblage with equal admiration. From "the 
frantic rage of Licinius," "many bore in their 
bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ." One 
"had been deprived of the use of both hands by the 
application of a red-hot iron." "Some had the 
right eye dug out, others had lost the right arm." 
At the appointed time, in the great hall of the 
palace, specially prepared for the assembly, the 
First Ecumenical Council was opened. First, one 
of the bishops, addressing the emperor, delivered 
a concise speech — so Eusebius relates, and subse- 
quent writers have inferred that this bishop was 
Eusebius himself. But Theodoret says that it was 
"the great Eustathius, bishop of Antioch," who 
"crowned the emperor's head with the flowers of 
panegyric." The emperor responded, exhorting 
the bishops to unanimity and concord. After the 
opening of the assembly, many personal causes were 
presented to the emperor for a hearing. With wise 
and fatherly words he referred them one and all 



The Arian Controversy. 159 

to the Supreme Judge for redress, and ordered 
their petitions to be burned. The way was cleared 
for the main issue. 

The Arians took the initiative. Having drawn 
up a formulary of their faith, they presented it to 
the council. It was immediately torn into frag- 
ments. This was decisive. " So great was the 
uproar raised against them," says Theodoret, 
"and so many were the reproaches cast upon them 
for having betrayed religion, that they all, with 
the exception of Secundus and Theonas, stood up 
and took the lead in publicly renouncing Arius." 
The Arians had come to Nicaea confident of vic- 
tory. Their oganization as a party was more per- 
fect, their doctrines were more clearly and logic- 
ally formulated. Besides pronounced partisans, 
they counted many eminent bishops who were 
favorable to their cause. They hoped, by the 
means they were able to employ, to win over to 
their side the great mass of those whose minds 
were not as yet made up. They suffered defeat 
before the battle was fairly begun. 

What, as appears froiii the several accounts, 
were the doctrines held in dispute? These have 
already come to our notice in the earlier stages of 
the controversy, but we may subject them to a 
more careful consideration. Eusebius, the histo- 
rian, presented, in the interests of harmony, a 
creed on which he believed all could unite. It 
was the creed which was in use in the church at 
Csesarea — a symbol of faith of unquestioned 



160 The Church of the Fathers. 

soundness and of venerable authority. "No 
room," he afterwards wrote, " appeared for con- 
tradiction." The emperor approved, and advised 
all to assent. Only one addition seemed to be re- 
quired, namely, that of the once rejected word, 
"homoousios" — consubstantial — which was to be 
conceived "in a divine and ineffable manner." 
Under pretense, however, of making this single 
insertion, the Athanasian party subjected the re- 
vered creed of Eusebius to such a revision as ut- 
terly changed its character, and made a defense 
to his church seem necessary. As revised, the 
creed read as follows: 

" We believe in one God, the Father Al- 
mighty, Maker of all things both visible and 
invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the 
Son of God, begotten of the Father, only be- 
gotten, that is to say, of the substance of the 
Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God 
of very God, begotten, not made, being of one sub- 
stance with the Father, by whom all things were 
made, both things in heaven and things in earth, 
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down 
and was made flesh, and was made man, suffered 
and rose again on the third day ; went up into the 
heavens, and is to come again to judge the quick 
and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost. 

"But those who say < there was when he was not,' 
and that 'he came into existence from what was not,' 
or who profess that the Son of God is of a different 
1 essence' or ' substance,' or that he is created, or 



The Arian Controversy. 161 

changeable, or variable, are anathematized by the 
Catholic Church" 

The additions, consisting of the italicized phra- 
ses, adequately indicate the differences between 
the two extreme parties, and were designed to ex- 
clude the Arians. 

The teaching of Arius may be summarized as 
follows: God alone is eternal and unbegotten; 
he alone is very God. The Son is created out 
of nothing by the will of God before all ages ; 
there was a time when he was not ; he was cre- 
ated that, as the power of God, he might bring 
the rest of creation into existence ; he is independ- 
ent of and different from the Father; he is a spe- 
cial, perfect creation, and, furthermore, by grace 
and adoption, occupies a special relation to the 
Father; he may be called God, but not "very" 
God. His appeal for authority was to Scripture. 
These passages in particular were quoted: "The 
Lord our God is one Lord"; "There is no 
God with me"; "The Lord created me in 
the beginning of his way"; " I by the Spirit of 
God cast out devils " ; " God hath made him both 
Lord and Christ"; "Christ the power of God 
and the wisdom of God"; "Who is the image of 
the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation"; 
"The Father is greater than I," etc. All those 
passages were utilized which assert or imply limi- 
tation, deficiency, subordination, subjection, prog- 
ress, independence, temptation, and the like. 
But victory was not for the disciples of Lucian. 
1 1 



162 The Church of the Fathers. 

The orthodox party, though it came to Nicaea in 
the minority, were triumphant at every point and 
pushed their advantage to the extreme limit. The 
coeternity and the consubstantiality of the Son 
with the Father — nay, the very deity of Jesus — was 
established in the creed of the Church from that 
day to this. 

4. Varying Party Fortunes. 

The rapid changes of party fortunes, the fre- 
quent synods and their numerous creeds, the local 
strifes in almost all the Eastern churches, the im- 
perial persecutions, first of one party then of the 
other — all which things follow during the next 
forty years after Nicaea — make the statement 
seem historically accurate, that the controversy 
was not ended there, but only just begun. "The 
highways were covered with galloping bishops," 
says a pagan writer. They were hastening to and 
from synods and from one scene of conflict, fraud, 
and violence to another. 

All the heretics but Arius himself and two adher- 
ents, by making mental reservations and compro- 
mises with the conscience, submitted to sign the 
creed which condemned their doctrines and anath- 
ematized themselves. Herein they were culpable. 
Their future course, as events developed, shows 
they could not have been sincere. Arius, Theo- 
nas, and Secundus had the courage and honor to 
go into banishment for their convictions — the first 
in Christian history to suffer a civil penalty for 



The Arian Controversy. 163 

this cause. In the subsequent vicissitudes of the 
controversy, others, who insincerely subscribed, 
experienced a similar fate — but not with courage 
and honor. Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theog- 
nis of Nicaea were the first of these. It seems 
that the emperor had become severe against the 
Arians after the council, and threatened with civil 
punishment all who continued in the heresy. 
Having decreed that the books of Arius should 
be burned, under penalty of death for conceal- 
ment, he now menaced with imperial repression 
any who should dare to praise those whom he had 
condemned. The union of the Church and the 
State was bearing fruit abundantly. 

About this time ( A.D. 328), on the death of Al- 
exander of Alexandria, there was advanced to the 
episcopal chair of that see one who must engage 
the greater part of our attention throughout the 
remaining history of this controversy. The com- 
pleteness of the orthodox victory at Nicaea was 
due to no one else so much as to a certain young 
deacon whom Alexander brought along w r ith him 
from the Egyptian metropolis. His extraordinary 
ability had already been marked, and doubtless 
his bishop foresaw eminent service from him in the 
debates that were sure to arise. This personage 
was Athanasius, destined to be called " the Great." 
In force of character, in noble ardor for a cause 
he deemed paramount to all others, in that single- 
ness and persistency and loftiness of purpose 
which are ever necessary to great achievements, 



164 The Church of the Fathers. 

and, finally, in a personality that made its impress 
permanently upon the institutions of the time, he 
was amply deserving of the title. The Nicene 
Creed, which has remained to this day "the most 
universal symbol of Christian faith" (Schaff), "a 
true monument and token of victory against every 
heresy" (Athanasius), was preeminently, all but 
entirely, the result of his masterful influence. 
After the council his activity continues, and the 
interest of the controversy centers about his person. 
It was natural that the defeated party should hate 
him. So where the conflict rages most there is he 
found in the midst. Not once nor twice does it 
seem true that it is "Athanasius against the world 
and the world against Athanasius." The history 
of this eventful period is largely an account of his 
varying fortunes. Five times in exile, he keeps 
up an unyielding warfare against the enemies of 
the Church, the "atheists," "the Ariomaniacs." 
The emperor, by an unexplained change of at- 
titude, recalled the exiled heretics, and, on their 
presentation of an acceptable statement of faith, 
ordered their restoration to their respective sees. 
He may have discovered in Arianism a counter- 
part and support of the theory of his own abso- 
lute headship and authority in the Christian state. 
The result was an occurrence of no great rarity, 
but of momentous consequences in the history of 
Christendom, namely, the alliance of a political 
and an ecclesiastical or theological party. Men's 
notions, divine policies, and systems agree by a 



The Arian Controversy* 165 

natural necessity with their theories of human 
governments. 

Arius, returning to Alexandria, was refused fel- 
lowship by Athanasius, who said " that it was im- 
possible for those who had once rejected the faith 
and had been anathematized to be again received 
into communion on their return." The bishop of 
Constantinople, however, by the emperor's order, 
submitted to receive the still uncompromising foe 
of "homoousia," but the event never happened. 
On the eve of his restoration, Arius, while on his 
way to the city, was suddenly taken ill, and amid 
convulsions immediately died. His enemies saw 
in this, of course, the hand of Providence. Oth- 
ers more than suspected it was poison. 

At Antioch the Arians, by the most shameless 
fraudulence (according to our orthodox histo- 
rians), expelled the good bishop Eustathius and 
installed a succession of heretics. Their machina- 
tions everywhere against Athanasius are of the 
darkest hue. The charge which, after many 
others had failed, proved effective with the emper- 
or was that he had threatened to prevent the ex- 
portation of corn from Alexandria to Constantino- 
ple. This was an interference with the public 
welfare which Constantine could not tolerate. 
He therefore banished Athanasius to Treves, in 
Gaul, as a disturber of the peace of the empire 
(A.D. 336). After an exile of two years and six 
months, he was restored by Constantine II. By 
Constantius, in 340, he was forced into exile the 



i66 The Church of the Fathers. 

second time. A council at Antioch in 341 con^ 
firmed the emperor's action. 

On a third occasion an appeal was made by both 
sides to Rome. This see, it may be remarked, 
was faithful throughout to the position of Athana- 
sius, but without much avail at this or any time. 
Among the many councils of the period, that of 
Sardica, A.D. 343 (or 344), was one of the most 
important. Some two hundred and forty bishops 
were in attendance. The Arians, probably fore- 
seeing defeat, took flight (as the historians relate) 
soon after the opening of the council. We know 
the method of all the early councils: the first act 
was for the stronger party to eject the weaker, and 
then to assert that their decrees were unanimously 
agreed to under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

In 346 Athanasius is again restored, but only to 
go again into exile almost immediately. The man- 
ner of his escape from the church where he was 
holding a vigil service by night is dramatically re- 
lated by himself. The church having been sur- 
rounded by more than five thousand armed sol- 
diers, Athanasius went out with the monks, while, 
it seems, the deacon and the people chanted a 
psalm responsively. 

The ascendency gained by the Arians under 
Constantius seems to have been well-nigh com- 
plete. He was no doubt a weak and vacillating 
ruler, with a leaning toward the heretical party. 
A bipartite council, meeting at Ariminum and at 
Seleucia (A.D. 359), each division rent by inter- 



The Arian Controversy. 167 

nal discord and neither arriving at unanimity, was 
a characteristic event of the time. Another, ruled 
by Arians, met at Nica in Thrace, and put forth a 
creed in which " those who refused to give in their 
adhesion were banished to the most remote regions 
of the world/' 

Julian, known in history by the opprobrious epi- 
thet of Apostate, came to the throne in the year 
360. Hoping that the Christian sects, in their re- 
lentless strife, would exterminate one another, he 
recalled the exiled bishops. But Athanasius he 
condemned to death; for, as Theodoret remarks, 
the pagans said "if Athanasius remained, not a 
heathen would remain." So great was the influ- 
ence of •* that victorious athlete of the truth ! " It 
was during this flight of Athanasius from death 
(A.D. 362) that the famous incident of his ready 
wit occurred on the Nile. On his way up the riv- 
er, being informed that his pursuers with the em- 
peror's death warrant were close upon him, he 
boldly turned about, headed down the stream and 
met his foes. To their query, " How far off is 
Athanasius?" he answered, "Not far"; where- 
upon they quickened their speed, and he returned 
to Alexandria. 

Jovian (363-364 A.D.) and Valentinian (364-375 
A.D. ) were both favorable to those who held to the 
Nicene symbol, and restored to them their bishop- 
rics. Valens (364-378), however, was an Arian — 
a fact of great consequence in all the subsequent 
history of Europe. For, during his reign, the 



1 68 The Church of the leathers. 

Goths were brought under Roman sway and 
forced to accept the dominant faith. It was not 
until the orthodox Merovingians in alliance with 
the papal chair of Rome gained the ascendency 
that the Goths were again compelled by the sword 
to change their faith and become Catholics. 

Athanasius died A.D. 373. This event comes 
near to marking the close of the Arian controver- 
sy. Under Gratian, " an adherent of the true re- 
ligion," the exiled shepherds return and are re- 
stored to their flocks. The Arians, rent by internal 
factions, never regain the ascendency. Arianism, 
according to philosophical historians, was fore- 
doomed to failure. It was illogical, an impossi- 
ble compromise — neither one thing nor the other. 
Christ, according to the Samosatians, was "very 
man "—only man; according to the Sabellians he 
was "very God" — only God; according to the 
Catholic standard he was "very God and very 
man" — the "God-man." Arianism said that he 
was neither God nor man, but a heavenly being 
second to God, and sharing the nature of man — 
"a nondescript, illogical compromise." 

The Catholic faith, on the other hand, was defi- 
nite, dogmatic, imperative. It matters not how 
unintelligible it was, its appeal was to faith, and it 
accorded with the mode of the religious mind, 
which sometimes "believes because it is impossi- 
ble." The temper of the Roman character, which 
is disposed to hold by authority, and is averse to 
change after a thing has once been authoritatively 



The Arian Controversy. 169 

settled; the exigencies of statecraft, a large varie- 
ty of events and circumstances apparently fortui- 
tous but governed, no doubt, by their own laws — 
all these were cooperating influences in determining 
what should be the creed of the Catholic Church. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

"The Arian Controversy," by H. M. Gwatkin, in " Epochs 
of Church History ," is a good account of events and doctrines. 



GREAT MEN OF THE EAST. 



"As I take it, universal history, the history of what man has 
accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the 
great men who have worked here. They are the leaders of 
men, these great ones; the modelers, patterns, and in a wide 
sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men con- 
trived to do or to attain ; all things that we see standing accom- 
plished in the world are properly the outer material result, the 
practical realization and embodiment of thoughts that dwelt in 
the great men sent into the world ; the soul of the whole world's 
history, it may be considered, were the history of these. . . . 

"It is well said, in every sense, that a man's religion is the 
chief fact in regard to him — a man's, or a nation of men's. By 
religion I do not mean the Church creed which he professes, 
the articles of faith which he will sign, and, in words or other- 
wise, assert ; not this wholly, in many cases not this at all. We 
see men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all de- 
grees of worth or worthlessness under eachorany of them. This 
is not what I call religion, this profession and assertion; which 
is often only a profession and assertion from the outworks of 
the man, from the mere argumentative region of him, if even 
so deep as that. But the thing a man does practically believe 
(and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, 
much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to 
heart and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to 
this myterious universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is 
in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines 
all the rest." — Carlyle. 

(172) 



CHAPTER IX. 

GREAT MEN OF THE EAST. 

We are now in the epoch of great men in the 
Church. There were in the East such pulpit ora- 
tors as Gregory of Nazianzum and Chrysostom; 
such theologians as Gregory of Nyssa and Theo- 
dore of Mopsuestia, and such organizers of forces 
as Ephraim the Syrian and Basil the Great. In 
the West there was an Ambrose, a Jerome, and an 
Augustine. While metaphysical problems relating 
to the nature of the Trinity were making this an 
age of keen and often bitter controversy, the force 
of moral ideas contained in the gospel was at the 
same time making it an age of uncompromising 
conflict between the powers of evil in high places 
and the powers of good in the churches. It was 
an age of great splendor, great vice, great dissolu- 
tion, and great reconstruction, and of great spiritual 
energy and moral movement. 

In a measure there was reformation: Monasti- 
cism was its powerful expression. Out of the con- 
trast between the corruption of the luxury-loving 
world, the self-indulgence of the degenerate peo- 
ples of Alexander's and Caesar's dying empire, and 
the passionate austerity and the quenchless thirst 
for righteousness of the Christians, arose this vast 
movement, one of the mightiest and most enduring 
the world has known. This austerity which knew 

(173) 



174 The Church of the Fathers. 

no bounds, this aspiration after purity which con- 
sumed body and soul, this longing for heaven which 
made earth a hell in all but sin, characterized ev- 
ery one of the great preachers and leaders of that 
time. 

Of the chief men of influence in this period in 
the East three are often referred to as u the Cap- 
padocians." They were born in the same re- 
gion of Cappadocia and at about the same time ; 
they were friends from youth — two of them were 
brothers. They were liberally educated in the 
same schools, they acknowledged the same theo- 
logical master (Origen), and belonged to the same 
school of doctrine. They have come down to us 
in Church history as " the three great Cappado- 
cians" — Basil, Gregory of Nazianzum, and Greg- 
ory of Nyssa. Their labors were eminent, their 
lives were high-pitched to lofty aims. 

i. Basil the Great. 

The eldest of the three, at least by from one to 
three years, was Basil, surnamed the Great. He 
was born at Caesarea, A.D. 329, of parents not 
only wealthy, but distinguished for piety. Both 
his mother, Emmelia, and his grandmother, Macri- 
na, are saints in the calendar: they were his earli- 
est teachers, and honored by him as the best. He 
was the eldest of five sons, four of whom, includ- 
ing himself, became bishops — one of them being 
Gregory of Nyssa. An elder sister is commemo- 
rated by him as " Saint Macrina." One of the 



Great Men of the East. 175 

most notable families in Christian history. Ba- 
sil attended school first at Caesarea, where he 
formed the acquaintance of Gregory Nazianzen, 
between whom and himself, afterwards to be as- 
sociates in greatness, a warm attachment grew up. 
Next, when sixteen years of age, he went to Con- 
stantinople, while Gregory went to Alexandria. 
At Athens, however, after a separation of some 
four or five years, they were reunited, and pursued 
their studies together. Basil in 'later years de- 
scribed their manner of life in the great city of 
culture and heathen vice as follows: "We knew 
only two streets of the city: the first, and the more 
excellent one, to the churches and to the ministers 
of the altar; the other, which, however, we did 
not so highly esteem, to the public schools and to 
the teachers of the sciences. The streets to the 
theaters, games, and places of unholy amusements 
we left to others. Our holiness was our great con- 
cern; our sole aim was to be called, and to be, 
Christians. In this we placed our whole glory." 
This sounds like the Wesleys at Oxford. 

Here they gained that mastery of rhetoric, elo- 
quence, and philosophy from the great pagan teach- 
ers of the time which made Basil the most delight- 
ful letter-writer and Gregory the most powerful or- 
ator — the "Golden-mouth" only excepted — in the 
early Church. Beginning in the home nursery, 
like Timothy, with a saintly grandmother and an 
equally pious mother as his teachers, then spend- 
ing many years in the great university centers, one 



176 The Church of the Fathers. 

after another, he received the best education his 
age could afford. 

His ideal of life during this time was taking 
shape, and it was on Stoic models — Stoic models 
purified and elevated by Christian ideas and Chris- 
tian motives. After he had returned home and 
renounced wealth and worldly honor — one of 
which was already his, and the other within easy 
grasp — he wrote pleasantly from his hermit abode 
in the wilderness, where he had chosen to reside, 
to a friend who had sent him some gift : ' ' What do 
you mean, my dear sir, by evicting from our re- 
treat my dear friend and nurse of philosophy, 
Poverty? Were she but gifted with speech, I take 
it you would have to appear as defendant in an 
action for unlawful ejectment. She might plead : 
'I chose to live with this man Basil, an admirer of 
Zeno, who, when he had lost everything in a ship- 
wreck, cried with great fortitude, "Well done, 
Fortune ! you are reducing me to the old cloak" ; 
a great admirer of Cleanthes, who, by drawing 
water from the well, got enough to live on and 
pay his tutors' fees as well; an immense admirer 
of Diogenes, who prided himself on requiring no 
more than was absolutely necessary, and flung 
away his bowl after he had learned from some 
lad to stoop down and drink from the hollow of 
his hand."' 

In theory and doctrine, in spirit and aim — 
tranquillity by exclusion of the world and by 
self-conquest, and the realization of a living 



Great Men of the East. 177 

union with the numens frcesens, an indwelling 
God — Stoicism and Monasticism were strikingly 
similar. 

Feeling the spirit of the age moving him, Basil set 
out to travel and study the monastic life in the va- 
rious regions whence the fame of great ascetics 
had gone forth. In Syria, in Arabia, in Mesopo- 
tamia, and in Egypt, he dwelt among the hermits 
and imbibed their enthusiasm for the life of self- 
mortification. From this further schooling in a 
far different institute from any which Constanti- 
nople or Athens boasted, he returned to his home 
and went into solitude. A letter to his friend 
Gregory declares his purpose. "I have aban- 
doned my life in town, as one sure to lead to 
countless ills; but I have not yet been able to get 
quit of myself. I am like travelers at sea, who 
have never gone a voyage before, and are dis- 
tressed and seasick; who quarrel with the ship be- 
cause it is so big and makes such a tossing, and 
when they get out of it into the pinnace or dingey 
are everywhere and always seasick and distressed. 
Wherever they go their nausea and misery go with 
them." "What exile from himself e'er fled?' ' asks 
Byron. We must work our work, live our lives, 
struggle, suffer, and act in the world, and advance 
by victory and by defeat. Basil's aim was noble, 
his spirit true — his way was not the wisest. " We 
must strive after a quiet mind," he continues, "that 
the heart may readily receive every impress of di- 
vine doctrine. Preparation of heart is the un- 
12 



178 The Church of the Fathers. 

learning the prejudices of evil converse. \t is the 
smoothing the waxen tablet before attempting tc 
write on it." His abode seems a paradise to him 1 
and his state approaches that of the angels them- 
selves. "What can be more blessed," he exclaims, 
' ' than to imitate on earth the choruses of angels ? to 
begin the day with prayer, and honor our Makei 
with hymns and songs ? as the day brightens, to be- 
take ourselves, with prayer attending on it through' 
out, to our labors, and to season our work with 
hymns, as if with salt?" 

In another letter to the same friend he describe? 
his retreat with poetic fervor: "I departed into 
Pontus in quest of a place to live in. There God 
has opened on me a spot exactly answering to my 
taste, so that I actually see before my eyes what I 
have often pictured to my mind in idle fancy. 
There is a lofty mountain covered with thick 
woods, watered toward the north with cool and 
transparent streams. A plain lies beneath, en- 
riched by the waters which are ever draining off 
from it, and skirted by a spontaneous profusion 
of trees almost thick enough to be a fence, so as 
even to surpass Calypso's island, which Homer 
seems to have considered the most beautiful spot 
on the earth. . . . What need to tell of the ex- 
halations from the earth, or the breezes from the 
river? Another might admire the multitude of 
flowers and singing birds, but leisure have I none 
for such thoughts. However, the chief praise of 
the place is that, being happily disposed for prod- 



Great Men of the East. 179 

uce of every kind, it nurtures what to me is the 
sweetest of all, quietness." 

Here many like-minded with himself gather about 
him, and the wilderness became a city. Then Basil 
displayed his genius, his ability as an organizer, 
and made his impress upon history. Elsewhere, 
up to this time, the hermits, or "dwellers in the 
desert" (cpe/Aos), had lived as monks (monos= 
alone); there was no organization, no communi- 
ty; it was radical individualism. Basil now or- 
ganized the "monks" into a coenobium, a com- 
munity; he established a monastery. 

With glowing ardor now he depicts the glories 
of the monastic life. His sister, Macrina, had 
joined him in the forest, and was presiding over a 
convent. To a widow whose son had been gained 
to the coenobium of Basil he wrote: "The art of 
snaring of pigeons is as follows. When the men 
who devote themselves to this craft have caught 
one, they tame it and make it feed with them. 
Then they smear its wings with sweet oil, and let 
it go and join the rest outside. Then the scent of 
that sweet oil makes the free flock the possession 
of the owner of the tame bird, for all the rest are 
attracted by the fragrance, and settle in the house. 
But why do I begin my letter thus? Because I 
have taken your son Dionysius, once Diomedes, 
and anointed the wings of his soul with the sweet 
oil of God, and sent him to you that you might 
take flight with him, and make for the nest which 
he has built under my roof. If I live to see this. 



i8o The Church of the Fathers. 

and you, my honored friend, translated to our lofty 
life, I shall require many persons worthy of God to 
pay him all the honor that is his due." 

In 364 Basil was made a presbyter, much against 
his will, and six years later was elevated to the 
archepiscopal see of his native city. He distin- 
guished himself in these years not only in theo- 
logical defenses of the Nicene Creed against the 
Arian Eunomius, and in his exposition of the na- 
ture and office of the Holy Spirit against Macedo- 
nius, but as a Church ruler and a powerful preach- 
er. He died in 379, saying, "Into thy hands I 
commend my spirit." Worthily canonized as a 
saint, he is called by councils and fathers "the 
glory of the Church," a "minister of grace," 
"a layer of the foundations of orthodoxy," and 
"the Great." By one saying of his he might be 
well remembered: "That prayer is good which 
imprints a clear idea of God in the soul ; and the 
having God established in self by means of mem- 
ory is God's indwelling." 

2. Gregory Nazianzen. 

Fellow-countryman with Basil, and friend from 
boyhood and coworker in the high places of the 
Church with him, Gregory's biography cannot be 
separately given. Yet, equally eminent in differ- 
ent abilities and in different labors with the great 
Church ruler, this man of eloquence and theology 
has much that is distinctive to be said of him. 

Gregory was born A.D. 330, at Nazianzum 



Great Men of the East. 181 

(hence called " Nazianzen"), in Cappadocia, of 
a family high in rank, influence, and wealth. Like 
Basil, he had a mother whose name is like a star 
in these ancient heavens of perished lights. Her 
portraiture shall be in the words of her worthy 
son. "She was," he writes, "a wife according 
to the mind of Solomon: in all things subject to 
her husband according to the laws of marriage, 
not ashamed to be his teacher and his leader in 
true religion. She solved the difficult problem of 
uniting a higher culture, especially in knowledge 
of divine things and strict exercise of devotion, 
with the practical care of her household. If she 
was active in her house, she seemed to know noth- 
ing of the exercises of religion; if she occupied 
herself with God and his worship, she seemed to 
be a stranger to every earthly occupation ; she was 
whole in everything. Experiences had instilled 
into her unbounded confidence in the effects of 
believing prayer; therefore she was most diligent 
in supplications, and by prayer overcame even the 
deepest feelings of grief over her own and others' 
sufferings. She had by this means attained such 
control over her spirit that in every sorrow she en- 
countered she never uttered a plaintive tone before 
she had thanked God." 

Gregory's education with Basil has already been 
described. Like his friend, after he had prepared 
himself for the highest honors the world had for 
learning, talent, and family influence to aid, he 
turned his back upon all and joined his oV com- 



182 The Church of the Fathers. 

rade in the wooded hills of Pontus. He spent a 
happy period here, which afterwards, in the height 
of power and amid stormy scenes of controversy, 
he sighed for with a romantic and tender regret. 
" Who will transport me," he cries, "back to 
those former days in which I reveled with thee in 
privations ? For voluntary poverty is, after all, far 
more honorable than enforced enjoyment. Who 
will give me back those songs and vigils? who 
those risings to God in prayer, that unearthly, in- 
corporeal life, that fellowship and that spiritual 
harmony of brothers raised by thee to a godlike 
life? who the ardent searching of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, and the light which, under the guidance of 
the Holy Spirit, we found therein?" 

Extremely against his mind he was ordained 
presbyter by his aged and infirm father, and, by 
the desire of the people, was appointed over his 
father's congregation at Nazianzum. This was 
about Christmas, 361 ; he did not preach his first 
sermon, however, until Easter the following year, 
for he fled from the responsibility and the care. 
In 370, Basil, who had just been made metropoli- 
tan bishop of all Cappadocia, appointed Greg- 
ory to Sosima, an insignificant and dreary out- 
of-the-way village. Gregory resented such treat- 
ment with indignation. It was a severe trial to 
their lifelong and well-cemented friendship. Basil 
was certainly culpable. He made the appointment 
solely in his own interests. The eminent abilities 
of Gregory, if not fidelity in friendship, should 



Great Men of the East. 183 

have won for him a more suitable field of labor. 
The unkindness was never forgotten by Gregory, 
and the wound to his heart was never healed. 

Honor, however, and a great career could not 
be denied him, for he was worthy. In 379, the 
year of Basil's death, he was called to take charge 
of the faithful in Constantinople, the capital of the 
empire. The city at this time was almost entirely 
in the hands of various kindred heretical parties, 
called, after their leaders, Eunomians, Macedo- 
nians, Apollinarians, and Novatians. Arianism, 
the mother of most of the heresies of this century, 
was strongly intrenched in all the larger church- 
es. Gregory began in a little chapel, a room in a 
friend's private house, which he fitted up and 
christened "Anastasia," for its name should com- 
memorate the "rising again" of the Catholic 
faith. It was in this little "Church of the Resur- 
rection" he preached the famous sermons which 
gave him the enduring title of the "Theologian," 
and placed him in the highest rank for oratory. 
Attracted by his fame, Jerome, on his way from 
the Syrian monks to the West, stopped at Con- 
stantinople to hear him preach and to place him- 
self under his instruction. 

Trouble, however, could not let alone so great 
a preacher of the gospel. First, the fashionable 
and folly-loving classes of the capital could not 
endure his rebukes, although they enjoyed, and 
yet feared, the charm and power of his eloquence. 
Secondly, an impostor won his confidence, and, 



184 The Church of the Fathers. 

during an illness of Gregory, got himself secretly 
installed by night in his church — a strange inci- 
dent revealing the times. The indignant people, 
on discovering what had happened, drove the in- 
terloper and his friends out of the city. 

When the Emperor Theodosius, an adherent of 
the Catholic faith, came to Constantinople in 380 
he expelled the Arians and gave the cathedral 
of St. Sophia into the hands of Gregory. Now 
the legality of Gregory's transference out of Cap- 
padocia to another see was raised in question. 
When the matter was brought before the Ecumen- 
ical Council that assembled in Constantinople the 
following year, Gregory, to escape trouble, re- 
signed and retired to his old home in Cappadocia. 
"His life," says Dr. Schaff, "with its alterna- 
tions of high station, monastic seclusion, love of 
severe studies, enthusiasm for poetry, nature, and 
friendship, possesses a romantic charm." 

His passion for the austerities of the monastic 
life was equal to that of his friends, Basil and 
Gregory of Nyssa. "His food was bread and 
salt, his drink water, his bed the bare ground, 
his garment of coarse, rough cloth. Labor filled 
the day; praying, singing, and holy contempla- 
tion a greater part of the night. . . . Silence 
and quiet meditation were law and pleasure to 
him." 

The estimate which one so eminent in the min- 
istry, "the art of arts," as he characterized it, set 
upon its work is well worth pondering. In his 



Great Men of the East. 1S5 

famous "Defense of his Flight to Pontus " he 
writes: "The scope of our art is to provide the 
soul with wings, to rescue it from the world 
and give it to God, and to watch over that which 
is in his image, if it abides; to take it by the hand, 
if it is in danger; to restore it, if ruined; to make 
Christ dwell in the heart by the Spirit; and, in 
short, to deify and bestow heavenly bliss upon one 
who belongs to the heavenly host." 

3. Gregory of Nyssa. 

The third of the "great Cappadocians" was not 
third in point of abilities, character, or service, 
but only of time, being some five and six years 
the junior respectively of his brother Basil and 
his friend Gregory. His education was wholly 
conducted by his older brother. In the monas- 
tery w r ith him they studied together above all else 
the works of Origen, from whose writings they 
made a collection of beautiful passages which they 
called " Philocalia." The influence of Origen up- 
on all the three Cappadocians was very marked; 
upon Gregory of Nyssa, the greatest of the three 
in speculative thought, it was most marked. 
Through them, possessing as they did the ancient 
Greek genius and learning, the Alexandrian Greek 
theology perpetuated and extended itself. 

The distinction of this theologian consists in 
his having been "the first who sought to estab- 
lish by rational considerations the whole complex 
of orthodox doctrines." In aim, therefore, as in 



186 The Church of the Fathers. 

particular views, he followed the great Alexan- 
drian, with abilities that specially fitted him for 
the task. Some features of his theology deserve 
particular attention. His doctrine of evil was Ori- 
gen's, namely, that it is a defect or privation. It 
is not an existence, a reality, but an absence of 
reality; for all true being is virtuous and beau- 
tiful. The beauty of the Supreme Being pene- 
trates all things, and the human mind is its chief 
expression — its mirror. God is not the author of 
evil, for evil, being a nonentity, has no author: 
it is a divinely permitted condition, for he "gave 
scope to evil for a nobler end." The freedom of 
the will, he taught with Origen and the Greeks 
generally, is indestructible; therefore, also, that a 
universal restoration is always possible. And in 
this even the fallen angels are included. His idea 
of salvation is strikingly expressed. "The soul," 
he says, "is a cord drawn out of mud; God 
draws to himself what is his own." The human 
spirit is "an influx of the divine inbreathing." 

Origen' s theory of Christ's death as a ransom 
paid to the devil for lost humanity — a ransom 
which justice to the evil one demanded — is also 
taught by Gregory. It should not be inferred 
from this borrowing of ideas, or receiving of sug- 
gestions, from a great thinker going before, that 
he was not original; for original and profound he 
was in the use he made of the views he accepted. 
Every doctrine in his mind assumed 'new meaning 
and fresh and lasting beauty. He is great by virtue 



Great Men of the East. 187 

of a single thought, i. £., that of bringing philos- 
ophy into union with religion, and thereby creat- 
ing a theology. With Clement of Alexandria this 
thought was a mere instinct; Origen gave it con- 
sciousness; Gregory gave it existence in reality. 

Of a kindlier and finer spirit than his brother 
Basil, Gregory everywhere bears the reader into 
the presence of the archetypal beauty — the divine 
meaning of the soul and of the universe. He is 
charmed by the loveliness of natural scenes, and 
writes of them with tender and sweet sadness and 
with longing for the deeper things of the Eternal 
Spirit. "When," he says, "I see every rocky 
ridge, every valley, every plain, covered with new- 
grown grass; and then the variegated beauty of 
the trees, and at my feet the lilies doubly enriched 
by nature with sweet odors and gorgeous colors; 
when I view in the distance the sea, to which the 
changing cloud leads out, my soul is seized with 
sadness which is not without delight. And when 
in autumn fruits disappear, leaves fall, boughs stiff- 
en, stripped of their beauteous dress, we sink 
with the perpetual and regular vicissitude into 
the harmony of wonder-working nature. He who 
looks through this with the thoughtful eye of the 
soul feels the littleness of man in the greatness of 
the universe." 

And again on Easter morning he sings a hymn 
of praise to the Everlasting Maker: "Everything 
praises God and glorifies him with unutterable 
tones; for everything shall thanks be offered also 



i88 The Church of the leathers, 

to God by me, and thus shall the song of those 
creatures, whose song of praise I here utter, be 
also ours. . . . Indeed, it is now the spring- 
time of the world, the springtime of the spirit, 
springtime for souls, springtime for bodies, a visi- 
ble spring, an invisible spring, in which we also 
shall there have part, if we here be rightly trans- 
formed, and enter as new men upon a new life." 

The aim and dominant idea of his life are ex- 
pressed in words true yet and always for those 
who have learned Christ and seek the riches 
of his grace and the beauty of his excellence. 
On adopting the monastic life he wrote: " Blood, 
wealth, and splendor we should leave to the friends 
of the world; the Christian's lineage is his affinity 
with the Divine, his fatherland is virtue, his free- 
dom is the sonship of God." 

Shortly after Basil's promotion to the office of 
archbishop, in order to strengthen his own posi- 
tion, he appointed his friend Gregory of Nazian- 
zum, as we have seen, to the obscure and wretched 
town of Sosima. About the same time, for simi- 
lar reasons, he consecrated his brother Gregory 
bishop of Nyssa, also a small and unimportant vil- 
lage. When surprise was expressed at this, he 
replied that the place should receive distinction 
from the man, not the man from the place; an 
answer which may have satisfied himself, but not 
his brother. 

His honor in Church history consists in the 
strength of his defense of the Nicene theology. 



Great Men of the East. 189 

He was acknowledged in the Second Ecumenical 
Council as " a pillar of the Church," and died, in 
the year 395, the most regretted hero of the faith. 

4. John Chrysostom. 

So famed for his eloquence was the great preach- 
er and expositor who was christened John that pos- 
terity has known him almost entirely as Chrysos- 
tom, the "Golden-mouth," or as "John Chrysos- 
tom." The Greek Church reverences him not 
only as its chief pulpit orator, but as one of the 
small number sufficiently eminent in the several 
qualities of holiness, orthodoxy, and learning to 
be called "Doctor." The whole Church honors 
him as its Demosthenes ; and more, as its St. John, 
who, like St. John the Divine, died in banishment 
true to the faith. His career exemplifies what was 
likely to befall an illustrious, ardent, and heroic 
preacher in an evil age. But against adversity, 
like an eagle beating up against the storm, he rose 
to greater heights. 

He was born in 347 at Antioch, where the dis- 
ciples were first called " Christians." His father 
was a man of wealth and rank, being a distin- 
guished officer in the army. His mother, An- 
thusa, belongs to that immortal class of high-souled 
Christian women who are no less a distinction and 
an honor to the Church than her famous scholars 
and preachers. Left at the age of twenty a wid- 
ow with a daughter (her firstborn) and a son, she 
vowed herself to perpetual widowhood, which she 



190 The Church of the Fathers. 

believed was right, in contrast to the heathen cus- 
tom of repeated marriages. Her nobleness of 
character evoked from the celebrated pagan 
teacher Libanius that memorable exclamation: 
"Bless me! what wonderful women there are 
among the Christians ! " 

John received instruction from the best teach- 
ers in that city of culture. Libanius, the teacher 
of Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, was at the head 
of the most famous school, which the young Gold- 
en-mouth attended. When, on his deathbed, the 
master was asked whom he would have as his suc- 
cessor, he answered : ' ' John — if only the Christians 
had not stolen him." 

He desired to follow the law, but his mother 
saved him for the gospel. Her influence, which 
was the power of tender love, is exemplified in an- 
other crisis of his life. Straightway after accept- 
ing Christianity he wished to follow the example 
of the most pious and ardent of his age, and find 
a retreat for ascetic living in the desert. His 
mother with tears and the tenderest words dis- 
suaded him. Taking him by the hand and lead- 
ing him to the chamber where she had given him 
birth, and making him to sit down beside her upon 
the bed, she poured out the grief and heartbreak 
which his purpose was causing her. She told 
of her sorrows of widowhood and of her cares in 
managing the estate, and of her love and pride and 
hope, all centering in her only son. "Think not," 
she continued, "I would reproach you with these 



Great Men of the East. 191 

things. I have but one favor to entreat — make me 
not a second time a widow; awaken not again my 
slumbering sorrows. Wait, at least, for my death ; 
perhaps I shall depart erelong. When you have 
laid me into the earth, and reunited my bones to 
those of your father, then travel wherever thou 
wilt, even beyond the sea; but, as long as I live, 
endure to dwell in my house, and offend not God 
by afflicting your mother, who is at least blameless 
toward thee." 

Thus a wise and true mother's eloquence, ten- 
derness, and nobility were breathed into the soul 
of her son, the future Golden-mouth. Not until 
her death, which came early, did he leave his 
home to follow the monastic impulse which was 
so mighty in him and in all the devout spirits of 
that age. He evaded being made bishop by put- 
ting forward his friend Basil, and thereupon 
went into solitude4n the mountains near Antioch. 
Here for six years he spent his time in study and 
writing and in such austere fasting and vigils as 
undermined his health and endangered his life. 
For the next sixteen years he labored, both preach- 
ing and writing, at Antioch. , His fame spread, and 
in 397 he was made patriarch of Constantinople. 
It was here he rose by his eloquence to the height 
of his power and reputation as the master of as- 
semblies. His eventful career exemplifies the life 
of the monk-preacher. Its vicissitudes indicate 
the warring conditions of the time. 

Chrysostom's moral requirements were too se- 



192 The Church of the Fathers. 

vere to be endured by the luxury-loving court of 
Constantinople, and his impetuous eloquence may 
have carried him beyond the mark of prudence. 
He was driven into banishment across the Bos- 
phorus, whence he wrote: "When I was driven 
from the city, I felt no anxiety, but said to my- 
self, If the empress wishes to banish me, let her 
do so; 'the earth is the Lord's.' If she wants to 
have me sawn asunder, I have Isaiah for an ex- 
ample. If she wants me to be drowned in the 
ocean, I think of Jonah. If I am to be thrown 
into the fire, the three men in the furnace suffered 
the same. If cast before wild beasts, I remember 
Daniel in the lions' den. If she wants me to be 
stoned, I have before me Stephen, the first martyr. 
If she demands my head, let her do so; John the 
Baptist shines before me. Naked I came from 
my mother's womb, naked I shall leave this world. 
Paul reminds me, 'If I still pleased men, I would 
not be the servant of Christ.' " 

He was soon recalled, for an earthquake oc- 
curred the following day, and this was interpreted 
as a sure sign of God's displeasure. Hence the 
superstitious court and people clamored for the 
great preacher of righteousness to return. 

Again the thunders of his eloquent denuncia- 
tians of Queen Eudoxia's court luxury, intrigue, 
and corruption bring him into trouble. The im- 
perial soldiers enter the church of St. Sophia 
where he is preaching: the clergy are dragged 
forth to prison; many worshipers are wounded, 



Great Men of the East. 193 

women flee in dismay, the holy sacraments are 
scattered and stained with blood, the church is 
plundered, and again Chrysostom is driven into 
exile. But in banishment his influence upon the 
mind of Christendom was scarcely diminished: 
" The Eastern Church was almost governed from 
the solitary cell of Chrysostom. He corresponded 
in all quarters ; women of rank and opulence sought 
his solitude in disguise. The bishops of many dis- 
tant sees sent him assistance, and coveted his ad- 
vice." 

This was the first conflict between the temporal 
and the spiritual forces of Christianity: it was a 
struggle for supremacy in which the victory re- 
mained with the State, w T hich was at least nominal- 
ly Christian, as against the Church. 

It is perhaps impossible for us at this time to con- 
ceive the extravagance of luxury and the enormity 
of sin practiced even by those who counted them- 
selves Christians in the Constantinople of that 
time. We are told what it was by the burning elo- 
quence of Gregory and Chrysostom, but one knows 
not how much in their depicture was due to love 
of rhetorical splendor and to an exaggeration of 
the virtue of ascetic living. Sublime men were 
they both in thinking and in living; and evil was 
the world in which they labored for righteousness. 
Their opposition to the iniquitous world of that age 
could not but be burning even to fierceness. 

Selections from the numerous writings of Chrys- 
ostom fill six of the large volumes in the "Nicene 
*3 



194 The Church of the Fathers. 

and Post-Nicene Fathers." How, with so much 
to gather from, can an idea of his eloquence — so 
far as it remains on the written page — be given? 
To limit ourselves to a brief typical discourse will 
perhaps be best. Such a discourse is offered in 
the two letters constituting his "Exhortation to 
Theodore after his Fall." Theodore, his youthful 
friend, was the distinguished bishop of Mopsuestia 
and one of the greatest theologians in that age and 
one of the noblest men. But he had abandoned 
the monastic life, and, like Luther in a later age, 
had dared to marry. In the eyes of the great 
apostle of ascetic life, this was a fall like Adam's, 
whereby Eden was lost. " It is not," he writes, 
" the overthrow of a city which I mourn, nor the 
captivity of wicked men, but the desolation of a 
* sacred soul, the destruction and effacement of a 
Christ-bearing temple. For would not any one, 
who knew in the days of its glory that well-ordered 
mind of thine which the devil has now set on fire, 
groan — imitating the lamentations of the prophet 
— when he hears that barbarian hands have defiled 
the holy of holies, and have set fire to all things 
and burned them up, the cherubim, the ark, the 
mercy seat, the tables of stone, the golden pot? 
For this calamity is bitterer, yea bitterer than that, 
in proportion as the pledges deposited in thy soul 
were far more precious than those. This temple 
is holier than that; for it glistened not with gold 
and silver, but with the grace of the Spirit, and in 
place of the ark and the cherubim, it had Christ 



Great Men of the East. 195 

and his Father and the Paraclete seated within. 
But now all is changed, and the temple is desolate 
and bare of its former beauty and comeliness, un- 
adorned with its divine and unspeakable adorn- 
ments, destitute of all security and protection; it 
has neither door nor bolt, and laid open to all man- 
ner of soul-destroying and shameful thoughts; 
and if the thought of arrogance or fornication or 
avarice, or any more accursed than these, wish to 
enter in, there is no one to hinder them; whereas 
formerly, even as the heaven is inaccessible to all 
these, so also was the purity of the soul." 

Substitute for this offense a real sin, as great to 
our thought as this was to Chrysostom's, and these 
words, so glowing with the ardor of regret and 
love, make an appeal always appropriate to a fall- 
en soul. Then his exhortation to rise again and 
renew his former vows: "To have fallen is not a 
grievous thing, but to remain prostrate after fall- 
ing, and not to get up again; and, playing the 
coward and the sluggard, to conceal feebleness of 
moral purpose under the reasoning of despair." 
Again, with a wealth of illustration which must 
have been one of the secrets of his power in the 
pulpit, as it is a perpetual beauty in his pages, he 
renews the exhortation to begin the struggle once 
more: "There is nothing strange, beloved Theo- 
dore, in a wrestler falling, but in his remaining in 
a fallen condition; neither is it a grievous thing 
for a warrior to be wounded, but to despair after 
the blow has been struck, and to neglect the 



196 The Church of the Fathers. 

wound. No merchant, having once suffered 
shipwreck and lost his freight, desists from sail- 
ing, but again crosses the sea and the billows and 
broad ocean, and recovers his former wealth. 
We see athletes also who after many falls have 
gained the wreath of victory; and often, before 
now, a soldier who has once run away has turned 
out a champion and prevailed over the enemy. 
Many also of those who have denied Christ, owing 
to the pressure of torture, have fought again, and 
departed at last with the crown of martyrdom upon 
their brows." 

Passages depicting the luxurious manner of life 
then common, and decrying it all as vanity, 
abound. Two will illustrate his eloquence and 
throw light upon the age: "Have you not seen 
those who have died in the midst of luxury and 
drunkenness and sport, and all the other folly of 
this life? Where are they now who used to strut 
through the market place with much pomp and 
a crowd of attendants ? who were clothed in silk 
and redolent with perfume, and kept a table for 
their parasites, and were in constant attendance 
at the theater? What has now become of all that 
parade of theirs? It is all gone — the costly splen- 
dor of their banquets, the throng of musicians, 
the attention of flatterers, the loud laughter, the 
relaxation of spirit, the enervation of mind, the 
voluptuous, abandoned, extravagant manner of 
life; it has all come to an end. Where now have 
all these things taken their flight? What has be- 



Great Men of the East. 197 

come of the body which enjoyed so much atten- 
tion and cleanliness? Go thy way to the coffin, 
behold the dust, the ashes, the worms; behold the 
loathsomeness of the place, and groan bitterly. 
And w r ould that the penalty were limited to the 
ashes ! But now transfer thy thought from the 
coffin and these worms to that undying worm, to 
the fire unquenchable, to the gnashing of teeth, to 
the outer darkness, to affliction and straitness; 
to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, who, 
although the owner of so much wealth and clothed 
in purple, could not become the owner of even a 
drop of water — and this when he was placed in a 
condition of such great necessity. The things of 
this w r orld are in their nature nowise better than 
dreams. For just as those who work in the mines, 
or suffer some other kind of punishment more se- 
vere than this, when they have fallen asleep owing 
to their many weary toils and the extreme bitter- 
ness of their life, and in their dreams see them- 
selves living in luxury and prosperity, are in no 
wise grateful to their dreams after they have 
awaked, even so that rich man, having become rich 
in this present life, as it were in a dream, after his 
departure hence was punished with that bitter 
punishment." Again: " Which of all things in the 
world seems to you most desirable and enviable? 
No doubt you will say government, and wealth, and 
public reputation. And yet what is more wretched 
than these things when they are compared with the 
liberty of Christians? For the ruler is subjected 



198 The Church of the Fathers. 

to the wrath of the populace and to the irrational 
impulses of the multitude, and to the fear of higher 
rulers, and to anxieties on behalf of those who are 
ruled, and the ruler of yesterday becomes a pri- 
vate citizen of to-day; for this present life in no 
wise differs from a stage, but just as there one 
man fills the position of a king, a second of a gen- 
eral, and a third of a soldier, but when evening 
has come on the king is no king, the ruler no ru- 
ler, and the general no general, even so also in 
that day each man will receive his due reward, 
not according to the outward part which he has 
played, but according to his works." 

Chrysostom's death occurred A.D. 407, in ex- 
ile. His own Socratic words, spoken to console 
another, consoled his own spirit: "No one is re- 
ally injured save by himself." 



GREAT MEN OF THE WEST. 



"The world is upheld by the veracity of good men; they 
make the earth wholesome. They who lived with them found 
life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in 
our belief in such society; and actually, or ideally, we manage 
to live with superiors. . . . The search after the great is 
the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of man- 
hood. We travel into foreign parts to find his works — if possi- 
ble, to get a glimpse of him; but we are put off with fortune 
instead. You say the English are practical; the Germans are 
hospitable; in Valencia the climate is delicious; and in the 
hills of Sacramento there is gold for the gathering. Yes; but 
I do not travel to find comfortable, rich, or hospitable people, 
or clear sky, or ingots that cost too much. But if there were 
any magnet that would point to the countries and houses where 
are the persons who are intrinsically rich and powerful, I 
would sell all and buy it, and put myself on the road to-day. 
. . . Men are helpful through the intellect and the affec- 
tions. Other help I find a false appearance. If you affect to 
give me bread and fire, I perceive that I pay for it the full 
price, and at last it leaves me as it found me, neither better nor 
worse; but all mental and moral force is a positive good. It 
goes out from you, whether you will or not, and profits me 
whom you never thought of. I cannot even hear of personal 
vigor of any kind, great power of performance, without fresh 
resolution. We are emulous of all man can do." — Emerson. 
(200) 



CHAPTER X. 

GREAT MEN OF THE WEST. 

"The emperor has his palaces, Jet him leave the churches to 
the bishop." — Ambrose's "Reply to Justina" 

i. Ambrose. 
Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine are the men 
of light and leading in the West at this time. They 
belong to this same half-century, with the great 
men of the East just spoken of, but the contrast in 
which they stand to their great Eastern contempo- 
raries could hardly be stronger. Rendered alike 
in spirit by the same faith and moral purpose, they 
were made diverse by race and civilization. When 
Chrysostom and Ambrose, for example, are viewed 
together, we discern how great is the contrast: 
Chrysostom is the Demosthenes of the early 
Church; Ambrose is the Caesar. Son of the pre- 
torian prefect of Gaul, trained at Rome for gov- 
erning, appointed to departments in Spain, Am- 
brose was a Roman of the antique consular or 
senatorial type. He was a Roman statesman. On 
his leaving the city to assume the duties of his of- 
fice, he was counseled by a shrewd friend, pro- 
phetically it would seem, "Rule your province 
not as judge, but as bishop. " And so it came to 
pass that he did, and, by so coming to pass, the 
sacerdotal power of the Church was permanently 

(201) 



202 The Church of the Fathers. 

elevated and confirmed. Ambrose, the Roman 
statesman, ruling his province as bishop of Milan, 
left the impress of his imperial character upon the 
Church, and raised and strengthened her author- 
ity in the government of the empire. 

"Ambrose was the spiritual ancestor of the Hil- 
debrands and the Innocents." To trace his career 
will be to discover the conditions of the times, the 
trend of events, and especially the growth of sacer- 
dotal power. 

On occasion of a vacancy in the see of Milan, 
the two parties, Arian and Athanasian, came into 
violent conflict in the election of a bishop. Am- 
brose, in his character as civil administrator, ap- 
peared upon the scene to allay the tumult, and 
spoke in such a Christian spirit and with such wis- 
dom that all the people cried out, "Ambrose, be 
bishop! Ambrose, be bishop!" The emperor 
approved, and the ardor of the people almost 
compelled his acceptance of the ecclesiastical post. 
This was A.D. 374, when Ambrose was about 
thirty-four years of age. 

At once he cast off his robes of splendor, and 
became not only an eloquent advocate but a rigid 
pacticer of the severest austerity of life. He be- 
stowed his large property upon the Church, and 
lived in poverty. Already liberally educated, for 
he was a master of Greek and had pursued legal 
studies at Rome, he now devoted himself assidu- 
ously to the study of the Bible and of the Greek 
Fathers. Basil, above all others, was his chosen 



Great Men of the West. 203 

master, though Origen exerted an influence scarce- 
ly less powerful. He was an effective preacher. 
Mothers, it is related, shut up their daughters to 
prevent their being induced by his persuasive elo- 
quence to assume the vows of virginity. 

In the assertion of the moral and spiritual power 
of the Church consists the chief distinction of this 
Roman, who was born to rule, whether as prefect 
or priest. From the first on the side of justice and 
humanity and orthodoxy, he set himself face to face 
against the emperors of his time. 

Maximus, who had murdered his sovereign and 
assumed the purple, he refused to admit to com- 
munion, and prevented from invading Italy. To 
Valentinian II., when it was proposed by the pa- 
gan prefect of Rome to restore the Altar of Victo- 
ry to its former place in the senate house, he ad- 
dressed two epistles which defeated that heathen- 
ish plan. The Empress Justina, who was an Arian, 
demanded a church in Milan for those of that faith, 
and against the obstinate bishop sent an armed 
force to compel his submission. "A bishop can- 
not alienate that which is dedicated to God/' was 
his firm answer. While he is at service in his 
church the soldiers invade the sacred precincts; 
but, rude and armed as they are, and acting under 
imperial orders, they fall upon their knees and as- 
sure the good bishop that they came to pray, not 
to fight. This is a picture of the times. 

But Ambrose encountered a stronger opponent 
than the Valentinians, Maximus, or Justina. The 



264 The Church of the Fathers. 

great Theodosius was now emperor, and an early 
struggle between the spiritual and the temporal 
powers, the Church and the State, was fought out 
between these two masterspirits of Christendom. 

Ambrose and the power he represented tri- 
umphed, and gave a lasting example to the eccle- 
siastics of succeeding ages. The contest was 
brought on by the following circumstance. A syn- 
agogue of the Jews at Callinicum had been burned 
by the Christians, at the instigation of their bish- 
op. Theodosius, just and magnanimous ruler that 
he was, commanded the Christians to restore the 
synagogue. At this juncture Ambrose, bishop of 
a see remote from the difficulty, interposes, de- 
fends and justifies the incendiarism of the Chris- 
tians, and remonstrates with the emperor against 
requiring such an act of apostasy as the rebuilding 
of a synagogue would be. 

This is another picture of the times, and a reve- 
lation of the character of the most eminent church- 
men. Theodosius does not at first yield. Am- 
brose, acting as the champion of all Christendom, 
and embodying in himself the entire sacerdotal 
power of the Church, publicly renews his remon- 
strance, and at last triumphs. This was his asser- 
tion of the fundamental maxim of his Christianity, 
that "the altar is superior to the throne. " The 
imperial power was to be held subordinate to the 
ecclesiastical power. One sentence of Ambrose 
expresses his whole theory: "The emperor is of 
the Church, but not above the Church." 



Great Men of the West. 205 

Another contest arose, with a far more humili- 
ating defeat of the imperial power. It is sad to 
relate the circumstances which led to this struggle 
— it is so foul a blot upon the illustrious character 
of Theodosius, else worthily called the Great. 
The only vindication we can find is such as we 
accord to other eminent and generally wise and 
gracious rulers of former times, namely, they 
were not wholly free from the instincts and pas- 
sions of barbarism. Theodosius, because of the 
slaying of some of his officers in a sedition at Thes- 
salonica, and because his own representative was 
treated with indignity, had the inhabitants of that 
city, when assembled in the circus as if to witness 
the games, surrounded by the troops and indis- 
criminately put to the sword — young and old, men 
and women, guilty and innocent. This is another 
picture of the fourth century. The sands of the 
arena were wet with the blood of seven thousand 
souls in one terrible carnage. 

The bishop of Milan wrote to the emperor of his 
horror at such an atrocious deed, exhorted him to 
penitence, pronounced his excommunication, and 
promised to pray in his behalf. When the emper- 
or next came to church he found the doors closed 
against him. The bishop had dared to execute 
his purpose ; he excluded even the emperor — and 
such an emperor— from the sacred service ! The- 
odosius, after eight months, entreated to be admit- 
ted to the precincts allotted to slaves and beggars. 
Even this was refused by the uncompromising, un- 



206 The Church of the Fathers. 

relenting bishop. At last he was admitted to au- 
dience, and was granted absolution on two condi- 
tions; the first of which evinced the humane in- 
stinct of Ambrose, namely, that capital punish- 
ment should not be executed for thirty days after 
sentence; and the second of which proved his de- 
termination to show the spiritual power supreme, 
namely, that the emperor should do public penance. 
" Stripped of his imperial ornaments, prostrate on 
the pavement, beating his breast, tearing his hair, 
watering the ground with his tears, the master of 
the Roman empire, the conqueror in so many vic- 
tories, the legislator of the world, at length received 
the hard-wrung absolution." This is yet another 
picture of the times. So great was the new moral 
power risen on the ruins of that power which ruled 
the world. 

Ambrose, in this contest, was on the side of out- 
raged humanity. Indeed, only his zeal for ortho- 
doxy and the common spirit of intolerance of the 
times against every form of heresy ever led him to 
be otherwise than humane.. One of his utterances, 
besides showing the true character of the man as 
great and good, is so noble as to be worthy of re- 
membrance for all time. He is speaking of the 
splendid offerings of piety — the ornaments, treas- 
ures, and costly consecrated vessels of the Church 
— with which he was ransoming captives taken in 
the wars of the times. There were objections of- 
fered. " The Church possesses gold," he replied, 
" not to treasure up, but to distribute for the wel- 



Great Men of the West. 207 

fare and happiness of men. We are ransoming 
the souls of men from eternal perdition. It is not 
merely the lives of men and the honor of women 
which are endangered in captivity, but the faith of 
their children. The blood of redemption which 
has gleamed in those golden cups has sanctified 
them not for the service [sacrament] alone, but 
for the redemption of men." 

Ambrose is the author of numerous dogmatic 
and ethical works, some of which are important 
as marking the progress of doctrinal thought in 
the West. His treatise on "The Duties of the 
Clergy" is his chief work in the ethical field, 
while the one on "The Holy Spirit" is the most 
important of his doctrinal works. He died A.D. 
397, and was laid to rest in the basilica called after 
his own name, in Milan, on Easter morning. This 
city still reverences his memory, sings his hymns, 
and uses his liturgy. When he lay dying, the no- 
bles came and besought him to pray for longer 
life. His reply was : "I have not so lived amongst 
you as to be ashamed of living, and I do not fear 
to die, for we have a good Lord." 

2. Jerome. 

"You walk laden with gold; you must keep out of the rob- 
ber's way. To us men this life is a race course: we contend 
here, we are crowned elsewhere. No man can lay aside fear 
while serpents and scorpions beset his path." — -Jerome's "Letter 
to Eustoc/izum." 

While Ambrose was preaching at Milan and lay- 
ing the law down to emperors, there was another 



208 The Church of the Fathers. 

equally powerful genius rising to influence in an- 
other part of the empire — one who was destined to 
be accounted with Ambrose one of the three great- 
est Latin Fathers. This was Jerome. 

Born of wealthy Christian parents in the same 
year with Ambrose (A.D. 340), Jerome, at the 
age of thirty, was converted from a licentious life 
in Rome, and with all his classic scholarship be- 
came the most ardent ascetic Christian of the 
Western Church. After his conversion he sought 
the regions where Christianity was practiced with 
the greatest austerities, namely, the provinces 
of the East. For eight years he did penance, 
with groans and tears, relieved by occasional 
spiritual ecstasies, as a monk in Syria. He sur- 
passed, if possible, the most famous examples 
of monkhood prior to his time. Like the other 
Eastern monks, he did not, however, cease his 
studies. In the poets, orators, and philosophers 
of Greece and Rome, as well as in the Holy Scrip- 
ture, was his delight. But this fondness for the 
classics was destined to a rebuke and suppression. 
In a vision he heard a voice saying, "Who art 
thou?" His answer was, "I am a Christian." 
The voice replied, "Thou art not a Christian, but 
a Ciceronian." He felt the sting of the accusa- 
tion, and relinquished his beloved authors, and 
counseled others against the reading of them. 

Driven out of Syria by the disputes of the polem- 
ical monks, to whom he said he preferred wild 
beasts, Jerome returned to the West and brought 



Great Men of the West. 209 

Monasticism with him. Athanasius had already by 
his writings introduced the ascetic doctrines from 
Egypt, and Ambrose was monastically austere at 
Milan; but Jerome maybe regarded as the found- 
er of Monasticism as an institution in the West. 
His influence in persuading both men and women 
to renounce the world, to forego every earthly 
pleasure, every human sentiment, we might say — ■ 
the love of children, of parents, of husband or 
wife — is one of the remarkable signs of the spirit 
of that time. Marriage in any case was approved 
by him only because it produced virgins for the 
cloister. Ladies of the highest Roman families 
enthusiastically took up his ascetic doctrines and 
vowed themselves to self-denial, poverty, and 
chastity. They learned Hebrew of him that they 
might chant the Psalms in the original tongue. 
They formed a sort of society and had their regu- 
lar meetings at the house of the Marcella, to whom 
many of Jerome's most beautiful letters are ad- 
dressed. One of these letters, written in 385, 
contains a passage of such charm that, as an illus- 
tration of his epistolary style in his large corre- 
spondence with these noble ladies, I will present 
it without apology for its length: 

" Wherefore seeing that we have journeyed for 
much of our life through a troubled sea, and that 
our vessel has been in turn shaken by raging blasts 
and shattered upon treacherous reefs, let us, as 
soon as may be, make for the haven of rural quiet- 
ude. There such country dainties as milk and 
H 



210 The Church of the Fathers. 

household bread, and greens watered by our own 
hands, will supply us with coarse but harmless 
fare. So living, sleep will not call us away from 
prayer, nor satiety from reading. In summer the 
shade of a tree will afford us privacy. In autumn 
the quality of the air and the leaves strewn under 
foot will invite us to stop and rest. In springtime 
the fields will be bright with flowers, and our psalms 
will sound the sweeter for the twittering of the 
birds. When winter comes with its frost and 
snow, I shall not have to buy fuel, and, whether I 
sleep or keep vigil, shall be warmer than in town. 
Let Rome keep to itself its noise and bustle, let 
the cruel shows of the arena go on, let the crowd 
rave at the circus, let the play-goers revel in the 
theaters, and — for I must not altogether pass over 
our Christian friends — let the ' House of Ladies ' 
hold its daily sittings. It is good for us to cleave 
to the Lord, and to put our hope in the Lord God, 
so that when we have exchanged our present pov- 
erty for the kingdom of heaven, we may be able to 
exclaim, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee? and 
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' 
Surely if we can find such blessedness in heaven 
we may well grieve to have sought after pleasures 
poor and passing here upon earth." 

Too stringent, however, for the populace his 
rule of life came to appear, and on occasion of the 
death of Blesilla, one of his female disciples, whose 
end was believed to have been hastened by the 
rigid self-denial he had led her to practice, their 



Great Men of the West. 211 

fury was stirred against him, and they raised the 
cry, « ' To the Tiber with the monks ! " In the midst 
of this tribulation, as he was quitting Rome for 
Jerusalem, he wrote to another of his lady adher- 
ents in the following strain: 

"I write this in haste, dear Lady Asella, as I 
go on board, overwhelmed with grief and tears; 
yet I thank my God that I am counted worthy 
of the world's hatred. Pray for me that, after 
Babylon, I may see Jerusalem once more; that 
Joshua, the son of Josedech, may have dominion 
over me, and not Nebuchadnezzar; that Ezra, 
whose name means helper, may come and re- 
store me to my own country. I was a fool in 
wishing to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, 
and in leaving Mount Sinai, to seek the help of 
Egypt. I forgot that the gospel warns us that 
he who goes down from Jerusalem immediately 
falls among robbers, is spoiled, is wounded, is left 
for dead. But, although priest and Levite may 
disregard me, there is still the good Samaritan 
who, when men said to him, ' Thou art a Samari- 
tan and hast a devil,' disclaimed having a devil, 
but did not disclaim being a Samaritan, this being 
the Hebrew equivalent for our word ' guardian.' 
Men call me a mischief-maker, and I take the title 
as a recognition of my faith. For I am but a serv- 
ant, and the Jews still call my master a magician. 
The apostle, likewise, is spoken of as a deceiver. 
There hath no temptation taken me but such as 
is common to man. How few distresses have I 



212 The Church of the Fathers, 

endured, I who am yet a soldier of the cross ! 
Men have laid to my charge a crime of which I 
am not guilty; but I know that I must enter the 
kingdom of heaven through evil report as well as 
through good." 

Jerome's influence was great also in the encour- 
agement of pilgrimages to the Holy Land, in which 
he set the example. For after having visited many 
lands, and studied in many famous libraries and 
under the wisest teachers, this, one of the most 
learned of all the Fathers, settled as a hermit in 
Bethlehem, to spend the remainder of his years 
in fasting and prayer, and in study, teaching, and 
writing, Jerome was a master not only of Latin 
and Greek but also of Hebrew — standing thus alone 
among the other Fathers of his time, who had but 
little if any knowledge of the original language of 
the Old Testament. And he used the knowledge 
he had acquired by his early study of the classics, 
by his later study of Hebrew and of Chaldee, and 
by his extensive travels and long residence in the 
East, in memorable service to Christendom; for 
he translated the entire Bible into the language of 
the West. This monumental work is known as the 
Vulgate. Never was scholarship used to better 
advantage. Never was a man's words (about the 
classics) so effectually refuted by his abilities and 
achievements. It was only his knowledge of 
Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, of Homer, yEschylus, 
and Pindar, and of all the facts of geography, 
races, and customs gained by observation, that en- 



Great Men of the West . 213 

abled this monk to render so great a service to 
mankind. 

Many important and learned works in the vari- 
ous departments of theological literature this great 
scholar's busy pen produced — exegetical works, 
commentaries, biographies, and histories, polem- 
ical and ethical treatises, and epistles — but his 
translation of the Bible into Latin outweighs them 
all a hundred times. Made from the original lan- 
guages, this work represented twenty years of 
toil. He himself characterized it as "labor -pius, 
sed -periculosa prcesumfitio" — a pious labor, but a 
dangerous undertaking — for he was assailed as a 
disturber of the peace and a falsifier of the Scrip- 
tures, because, forsooth, he strove to supplant with 
a correct translation the old Itala that was full of 
inaccuracies. By this work Jerome became, as 
Dr. Schaff says, "the chief former of the Latin 
Church language, for which his Vulgate did a de- 
cisive service similar to that of Luther's transla- 
tion for German literature and that of the authorized 
English Protestant version for English." The same 
historian further says: "The Vulgate takes the 
first place among the Bible versions of the an- 
cient Church. It exerted the same influence 
upon Latin Christendom, as the LXX. upon 
Greek, and is directly or indirectly the mother of 
the most of the earlier versions in the European 
vernaculars." 

A monastic city grew up about the saintly schol- 
ar's cell in the birthplace of our Saviour Pil- 



214 The Church of the Fathers. 

grims to the Holy Land sought him out, and many 
chose the ascetic life to be near and like him. Be- 
sides the monastery of which he was head, there 
was erected a church, a hospice for pilgrims, and 
a convent for women. During a period of thirty- 
four years he lived here with the greatest austeri- 
ty, and labored with almost incredible success. 
While his achievements provoke only our admi- 
ration, the famous painting of Domenichino, rep- 
resenting the emaciated form supported for the 
"Last Communion," only fills us with a sense of 
the profoundest pity. Such learning, such mis- 
judgment ! 

Jerome was the bitterest controversialist the 
Church has had, perhaps, in any age. There was 
hardly an eminent contemporary with whom he 
had not some acrimonious dispute ; and his words 
were either daggers or bludgeons. For the saint- 
ly Ambrose he had the base charge of plagiarism. 
Against the heroic John Chrysostom, the Golden- 
mouth, he spread a venomous diatribe. With 
John, the good bishop of Jerusalem, he had a 
personal contention which only the eminence of 
the parties kept from being petty and puerile. 
With his early friend and fellow-monk, Rufinus, 
he engaged in a quarrel which was disgraceful to 
the whole Church, and bore him hatred beyond 
the grave. Vigilantius, one of the soberest-minded 
and best men of that time, he treated with acrid 
contempt in public attacks. Against Jovinian, who 
advocated a temperate rule of living as opposed to 



Great Men of the West. 215 

severe asceticism, arguing that the married state, if 
kept in faith and piety, was not less honorable than 
virginity, he wrote: " These are the hissings of 
the old serpent; by these the dragon expelled man 
from paradise." Even the great Augustine came 
in for his trenchant rebuke when he had the pre- 
sumption so much as to question the fitness of cer- 
tain of his biblical renderings. Against Origen, 
also, more than fifty years gone to his great re- 
ward, he turned bitterly in later life, although in 
earlier and unspoiled years he was only an un- 
qualified eulogist of "the true man of adamant 
and heart of brass." To the very end, though en- 
feebled in body by age and fastings, he was still 
vigilant of the true faith and fierce in its defense. 
The truths of Christianity were to him the golden 
apples of the garden of Hesperus, and he was the 
great dragon set therein to guard them. In paint- 
ing and sculpture he is represented always attended 
by a lion. His own words to Rufinus may help us 
to understand his spirit: "When you realize the 
effort of the fighter, then you will be able to praise 
the victory." 

He died in 420, and was buried near the Grot- 
to of the Nativity in Bethlehem. A lion is his 
symbol. In the old pictures and in many a 
cathedral window the king of beasts and the 
terror of man stands beside this fierce defender 
of the truth, while the Book of Truth lies open 
in his hand. 



2i6 The Church of the Fathers* 

3. Augustine. 

" Ubi amor, ibi trinitasP 

" Naught conquers but truth; the victory of truth is love." 

"Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless 
till they rest in Thee." 

"My Father, supremely good, Beauty of all things beauti- 
ful." 

"The reward of God is God himself." 

"A happy life is joy in the truth." 

— Sayings of St. Augustine. 

Ambrose vindicated the spiritual supremacy of 
the Church even over emperors; Jerome by his 
translations of the Bible permanently fixed the 
language of the Church ; Augustine accomplished 
a more eminent task — the determining for a thou- 
sand years the prevalent theology of the Church. 

A special distinction belongs to St. Augustine as 
the solitary author in this period who wrote any- 
thing that i§ still popularly read. His "Confes- 
sions" is a book which has equal fame with 
Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" and Thomas a 
Kempis's "Imitation." In this book his whole 
heart is laid bare before God, and, incidentally, 
as it were, we are permitted to look in upon the 
most intimate secrets of an extraordinary life. His 
whole discourse is prayer to God, the good Om- 
nipotent, who careth for every one as if he cared for 
him only. His "Confessions " are one symphony 
of praise to God, the Light of his heart. "Thou 
movest us to delight in praising thee," he begins, 
"for thou hast made us for thyself, and we are 
restless till we rest in thee." 



Great Men of the West. 217 

This famous saying is the complete commentary 
on his life. Gifted with unusual energy of mind 
and thirst after philosophic truth, his life tip to his 
thirty-fourth year was one strange mixture of ar- 
dent spiritual aspiration and of gross carnal indul- 
gence. The heights and depths were equal. Born 
in North Africa, like Tertullian, his temper par- 
took, as did Tertullian's, of the nature of that fiery 
clime. His father, Patricius, was a heathen, but 
a cultured one, and of a passionate sensibility, 
which he bequeathed to his son. His mother's 
name — all the world knows it — was Monica, one 
of the brightest names in all the records of ador- 
able motherhood. She was a Christian woman, 
whose tears mingled with her broken prayers for 
the salvation of her wayward boy. " Go thy way, 
and God bless thee," once said a certain bishop 
to whom she had gone for help and consolation ; 
" for it is not possible that the son of these tears 
should perish." He was given the best education- 
al advantages from the first, and, though not uni- 
formly diligent, he progressed rapidly. In young 
manhood he went to Rome, first to study, then 
to teach rhetoric, a study which then embraced 
what later was known as the " humanities," or the 
belles-lettres. Meanwhile he both led a profligate 
life and searched for a satisfying philosophy. Cic- 
ero's " Hortensius," he relates, turned his prayers 
to the Lord and made him have other hopes and 
fears. "How ardent was I then, my God, how 
ardent to fly from earthly things to thee ! " 



2i8 The Church of the Fathers. 

Manichaeism — the doctrine of two opposed prin- 
ciples, evil and good, united respectively with mat- 
ter and spirit — first commended itself to his mind. 
This heresy consisted of a Persian theory com- 
bined with a distorted Paulinism, such as, for ex- 
ample, is to be found in the seventh chapter of 
Romans, where the apostle so powerfully depicts 
the eternal conflict. He came to a knowledge of 
the error of Manichaeism by discovering the nature 
of evil as " naught but a privation of good, until in 
the end it ceases altogether to be." He was at 
that time nineteen years old. 

Neoplatonism was the next system of doctrine 
which he tried. We have already considered the 
claims of this philosophy to meet the world's needs 
of a universal redemptive religion. Its lofty ideal- 
ism and high spiritual as well as ethical aims ap- 
pealed mightily to the eager soul of Augustine. In 
this teaching he found much to inspire, much to be 
followed, but nothing to renew the mind. In later 
years he wrote, " No philosophers come nearer 
to us than the Platonists " ; but he found not in 
them the power of God unto newness of life. 

At the age of thirty, in pursuit of his profession, 
in which he was now distinguished, he went to 
Milan and listened to Ambrose preach. His moth- 
er, made strong by her piety, had followed him 
over lands and sea, in all perils feeling secure in 
God. " For in the dangers of the sea," he con- 
tinues to relate, "she comforted the very sailors, 
assuring them of a safe arrival, because she had 



Great Men of the West. 219 

been so assured by thee in a vision." By the ser- 
mons of Ambrose he was brought first to a state of 
agitation, and his mother " loved that man as an 
angel of God" for this work, and continued to 
pray. He sought to change his manner of life and 
work his own reformation. Problems of thought, 
however, would not let him have rest. He passed 
through great struggles, seeking knowledge of the 
Scriptures from Ambrose and pondering much his 
frequent saying, " The letter killeth, but the Spir- 
it giveth life." Yet the disorder and darkened 
eyesight of his mind, he says, "by the sharp 
anointings of healthful sorrows, was from day to 
day made whole." 

His conversion — an event of so great importance 
as to be commemorated in the Roman calendar — 
was consummated while he was walking one day 
with his friend Alypius in the garden of the house 
where they were lodging near Milan. With a per- 
turbed and groaning spirit he was pouring out his 
soul, apart from his friend, in anguishful prayer 
for truth and peace. Thereupon he heard a voice 
saying, " Tolle, lege ! Tolle, lege ! " Thinking at 
first it was a child exclaiming this in some game, 
on reflection he found the words so suited to him- 
self that he concluded it was a heavenly voice ut- 
tering them, bidding him, "Take, read." The 
further account is best given in his own words: 
" So, restraining the torrent of my tears, I rose up, 
interpreting it no other way than as a command to 
me from heaven to open the book, and read the 



220 The Church of the Fathers. 

first chapter I should light upon. For I had heard 
of Anthony that, accidentally coming in whilst the 
gospel was being read, he received the admonition 
as if what was read were addressed to him, 'Go 
sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou 
shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and fol- 
low me.' And by such oracle was he forthwith 
converted unto Thee. So quickly I returned to 
the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had 
I put down the volume of the apostles, when I 
rose thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence 
read that paragraph on which my eyes first fell: 
'Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chamber- 
ing and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but 
put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.' 
No further would I read, nor did I need; for in- 
stantly, as the sentence ended — by the light, as it 
were, of security infused into my heart — all the 
gloom of doubt vanished away/' 

Never was there a more ardent longing after 
the living God since the time of David ; and never 
was there a more glorious finding of him. And at 
last he discovered that he for whom he was search- 
ing had ever been near him — the bread of the in- 
ner mouth of his soul, he says, and the power that 
wedded his mind with his innermost thoughts. 
The seeking and the finding, the regret and the 
joy, are all expressed in a passage remarkable for 
its beauty and almost a psalm in adoring ecstasy: 
"I have loved thee late, thou Beauty, so old and 



Great Men of the West. ii\ 

so new ; I have loved thee late ! And lo ! thou 
wast within, but I was without, and was seeking 
thee there. And into thy fair creation I plunged 
myself in my ugliness; for thou wast with me, 
and I was not with thee ! Those things kept me 
away from thee, which had not been except they 
had been in thee ! Thou didst call, and didst cry 
aloud, and break through my deafness. Thou 
didst glimmer, thou didst shine, and didst drive 
away my blindness. Thou didst breathe, and I 
drew breath, and breathed in thee. I tasted thee, 
and I hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, 
and I burn for thy peace. If I, with all that 
is within me, may once live in thee, then shall 
pain and trouble forsake me ; entirely filled with 
thee, all shall be life to me." 

The conception of God as an indwelling pres- 
ence, the very breath of our being, is one of 
the sublimest in this book of sublime thoughts. 
"Thou wert more inward to me than my in- 
most inward part, and higher than my highest." 
" Thou art wholly everywhere, whilst nothing alto- 
gether contains thee." " Where do I call thee to, 
since thou art in me?" His concept of life, its 
end and way, was correspondingly high. The 
following quotations are to the point: "Life eter- 
nal is the supreme good, and death eternal the 
supreme evil, and to obtain the one and to escape 
the other we must live rightly." In this world and 
in the next "all virtue will be to love what one sees, 
and the highest felicity to have what one loves." 



222 The Church of the Fathers. 

His doctrine of evil leads to a view as optimis- 
tic as that which Origen expressed of the final 
restoration of all things. He thus solves the im- 
memorial problem of why evil in the universe of 
a good God should be permitted to exist: "As 
the opposition of contraries lend beauty to lan- 
guage, so the beauty of the course of this world 
is achieved by the opposition of contraries, ar- 
ranged, as it were, by eloquence not of words, but 
of things." The course of the ages is "an ex- 
quisite poem set off with antitheses." Again, 
using an illustration from another field of art, 
he says: "For as the beauty of a picture is in- 
creased by well-managed shadows, so to the eye 
that has skill to discern it the universe is beauti- 
fied even by sinners, though, considered by them- 
selves, their deformity is a sad blemish." The 
viper, which God has created good, fits inferior 
parts of his creation; so likewise does the sinner. 
"To thee is there nothing at all evil, and not only 
to thee, but to thy whole creation; because there 
is nothing without which can break in and mar 
that order which thou hast appointed." 

The forty-three years of his life after his con- 
version were devoted by Augustine to arduous 
and heroic labors for the Church. Having been 
baptized by Ambrose, he returned to Africa where 
first for three years he lived in ascetic retirement, 
founding the monastic order called either after 
himself the "Augustinian," or, since they wore 
the black dress adopted from the East, the " Black 



Great Men of the West. 223 

Friars." In 395 he was made bishop of Hippo, 
an office which he occupied the remainder of his 
life of thirty-five years, and a title which he yet 
bears. 

His activity was prodigious. In continual requi- 
sition wherever he went to preach — commonly de- 
livering a sermon each day, and sometimes several — 
he found time to write that series of eight large im- 
perial octavo volumes which are now published 
in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," and 
these are only a part of his writings. Further- 
more, he lived and labored through two of the 
stormiest controversies of the Church, in each of 
which he was the victorious protagonist of ortho- 
dox Catholicism; and through the successive dis- 
astrous invasions of Goths, Huns, and Vandals, 
who repeatedly laid waste the country of his la- 
bors. 

As the history of the Pelagian controversy is to 
be given at length later, his part in that strife will 
there be set forth. It is largely a history of his 
doctrines and activities. 

During this devastation of the empire by the 
barbarians, Augustine wrote his monumental work 
entitled "The City of God." It is a philosophy 
of history, endeavoring to show that it was foreor- 
dained in the providence of God that Rome should 
fall in order that the true eternal city, the urbs 
ceterna et sacra of the Christian Church, might rise 
and rule the world. This great book, second in 
value to the modern reader only to the " Confes- 



224 The Church of the Fathers. 

sions," was deeply studied, it is a noteworthy fact, 
by Charles the Great. 

Augustine was a man of genius and of intense 
force of character. There were more learned 
men among the Fathers — although he is worthy to 
be accounted one of the four "Doctors" of the Lat- 
in Church — but not one whose influence exceeded 
his. He illustrates how much an ardent temper- 
ament, a soul kindled by a lofty emotion, counts 
for in life. A line in the old Latin hymn entitled 
"The Glory and Joys of Paradise," ascribed, 
though erroneously, to him, yet expresses the 
dominant desire of his being: "Ad -perennisvitce 
fontern mens sitivit arida." 

From the experience of his fruitless search for 
a system of truth that should commend itself as 
such to the reason, and at the same time satisfy 
"the parched soul's longing for the perennial 
fountain of life," he arrived at a perception which 
became a watchword in his great controversy with 
Pelagius, and is valuable for all time, namely, 
"Faith precedes understanding." 

From this time on, the questions of dispute in 
the Church concerned not those things which en- 
gaged the great early councils, but original sin, 
grace, election and reprobation, the freedom of 
the will, and the sovereignty of God. 



WORSHIP, RITUAL, AND OBSERVANCES. 

*5 



"We may look back once more and try to conceive, if we 
will, what was its (the Church's) appeal to the imagination 
while still unchallenged. We may guess it, if we can, by 
what still remains of it at the command of Rome to-day — 
incomparably more brilliant, imposing, and august than any 
military or state show with which it might possibly be com- 
pared. . . . 

"All we have seen or learned of the glory of the outer tem- 
ple is but playing upon the surface of a tide of power, whose 
real depth is far within. The symbolism sculptured upon 
walls, or built into corbel and capital, or blazoned in the arch- 
es of stately windows, is repeated in innumerable ways — in 
creed, song, litany; in priestly robes and swinging censer and 
lighted candle; in the tone of silver bell, or the deep, mellow 
peal that steals down from the church tower like an infolding 
mist, or the chime that rings out on the air at change of hours; 
in the chant sung by one powerful voice or answered by the 
harmonies of the cathedral choir; in the melody of hymns, 
whose tenderness we feel in the Stabat Mater, as we feel their 
terror and their awe in the Dies Irce ; in the uplifted Host, which 
multitudes adore as a literally present and visible deity; in the 
diversities of sound and pomp of color that belong to the pro- 
cession on some festal day. All these are only the various 
language in which that Church is continually preaching to eye 
and ear her awful mysteries, the symbol and accompaniment 
of the Real Presence, which she claims to hold only in her 
keeping. Whatever the human mind has yet conceived of 
terror and pain, of awe and majesty, of gladness, reverence, 
and hope, is shadowed forth in that language of picture and 
music, with a power scarce diminished to this day."— -J, H* 
Allen. 

(226) 



CHAPTER XI. 

WORSHIP, RITUAL, AND OBSERVANCES. 

i. Church-building. 

The Christians began by worshiping in the Jew- 
ish synagogues. In them Jesus taught and Paul 
preached. By the increasing hostility of the Jews, 
however, they were in time excluded from their 
holy places, and the apostles taught and preached 
thereafter in private houses, in public assembly 
places, and wherever opportunity offered. Ceme- 
teries where martyrs were buried were favorite 
spots. The lodge rooms, or collegia halls, and 
the lecture halls of pagans came later on to be 
used. 

But the basilica, or town " Hall of Justice," of 
all others, offered the most suitable place for Chris- 
tian assemblage and worship. In order to under- 
stand its interior arrangement it is necessary only 
to go into an English or Roman Catholic cathe- 
dral — a chapel will do — for the basilica provided a 
model for church architecture. Being designed 
for a court of justice, it was oblong in form and 
divided lengthwise by two rows of columns, form- 
ing three avenues, or aisles; these were crossed 
by a third avenue somewhat elevated, upon which, 
in the center, sat the advocates, notaries, and other 
men of law. At the end of the building, where it 

(227) 



228 The Church of the Fathers. 

swelled into a semicircular recess, with rounded 
ceiling, sat the judge and his assistants. 

Now when this came to be used as a place of 
Christian worship, the two outer colonnaded av- 
enues continued to be used, the one by men, the 
other by women, for the assembly; the middle av- 
enue came to be designated " nave," because of its 
fancied resemblance to St. Peter's ship (navis); the 
transverse aisle completed, with the nave, a cross; 
the bishop took the chief magistrate's throne, and 
the presbyters sat upon either hand in the place of 
the assistants. 

Symbolism was developed much further when 
churches, on this model, began to be built. The 
fourth century "Apostolic Constitutions" give us 
the prescribed plan and the significance of each 
part, and regulate also the order of the various 
classes composing the congregation. 

Pagan temples, never being designed for the 
general assemblage of worshipers, were not com- 
monly suitable to the use of Christians. In some 
instances, however, they were taken possession of 
when power was gained, and used without any or 
considerable change ; in other instances, they were 
torn down and reconstructed. 

The first mention of church-building is made in 
the reign of Severus (A.D. 222-235). It is esti- 
mated that by the year 300 there were forty Chris- 
tian churches and chapels in Rome. There were 
at the same time one hundred and fifty pagan tem- 
ples and one hundred and eighty pagan chapels 



Worship, Ritual, and Observances. 229 

and shrines. The persecution of Diocletian be- 
gan (x\.D. 303) with the wholesale destruction of 
Christian shrines. Constantine is much eulogized 
by Eusebius as a restorer and builder of them. 
When his mother, Helen, had made her famous 
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to find the cross on which 
the Saviour suffered, and, as was believed, did find 
it, together with those of the two thieves, the first 
Christian emperor had a magnificent and richly 
adorned church erected over the spot, and called 
it the " Church of the Resurrection," it coming 
later to be known as the "Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher." The upper ceiling of this was over- 
laid with gold, the nave was lined with marbles; 
twelve pillars, representing the twelve apostles, 
upbore the dome, and their capitals were vases of 
silver. Many other sacred places were honored 
by the emperor in a like munificent manner. 

2. The Overthrow of Paganism. 

With the activity displayed in building churches, 
after the revenues of the empire came into the 
hands of the Christians, proceeded — inasmuch as 
they had not only the will but the power — the de- 
struction of temples and the extermination, root 
and branch, of paganism. By the famous Edict 
of Milan, issued by Constantine in 312, entire and 
absolute religious liberty was guaranteed to every 
subject to believe and worship according to that 
faith wherein he was reared or which he had cho- 
sen. It was a memorable act and very illustrious. 



230 The Church of the Fathers, 

Not many years passed, however, before the tide 
of persecution that for two hundred and fifty years 
had been deluging the Christians in their own 
blood was turned with religious madness upon the 
now dethroned heathen worshipers. Constantius, 
the son of Constantine, but less wise and great 
every way than his father, prohibited pagan sacri- 
fices by edict, and, as an instance of his zeal, re- 
moved the pagan Altar of Victory from the Roman 
senate chamber. 

Julian, known as the Apostate, was his succes- 
sor (361-363). Properly speaking, he was not 
an " apostate," but always an adherent — though, 
until he came to the throne, not openly — of pagan 
worship and philosophy. While a student togeth^ 
er with him at Athens, Gregory Nazianzen had 
prophesied bad of him, it is said, in these words: 
" What an evil the Roman state is here nourish- 
ing!" Julian was outrageously tyrannized over 
by his narrow-minded and jealous relative, the 
emperor. He was put unwillingly to a monaste- 
rial school in Nicomedia ; for seven months he was 
imprisoned through base suspicion. Envied by 
the emperor because he was brillant and popular, 
he was treated with ignominy and inhuman cruel- 
ty. As Csesar, and so heir to the imperial throne, 
he was feared and perpetually suspected; the fate 
of his father threatened him — death at. the hands 
of Constantius. 

Julian always had a preference for paganism. 
The Christianity he knew was stained with the 



Worship, RituaU and Observances. 231 

blood of murder; was cruel, corrupt, and devoid 
of that beauty and ancient humanity which he 
loved. As soon as, without danger to his life, he 
had opportunity, he openly showed his preference. 
He did not persecute the Christians; on the con- 
trary, he recalled the exiled bishops, saying they 
would destroy one another in their strifes. It is a 
bitter reflection, with too much reason for it. Ju- 
lian went no further than to withdraw from the 
Church the privileges before granted, and to favor 
pagan worship. But there was a general revival 
of paganism in the empire, and in divers parts vio- 
lent outbreaks occurred against the Church. 

Gratian (375-383) confiscated temples and pa- 
gan property to Christian uses, and monks in va- 
rious regions set about the violent and general de- 
struction of the beautiful edifices of the ancient 
worship. It was in these times that Libanius, the 
illustrious pagan teacher before spoken of, ad- 
dressed to the emperor an eloquent plea in behalf 
of their preservation. The most celebrated and 
magnificent of all the temples destroyed was that 
of Serapis, known as the Serapion, in Alexandria, 
A.D. 391. The bishop, Theophilus, is accred- 
ited with having incited the monks to this deed. 
With it perished not only an incalculable amount of 
fine statuary, but the great library which ages had 
contributed to build up. 

Here and there, within the Church, a voice of 
deprecation and remonstrance was raised, but to 
no avail. Chrysostom pleaded: "Christians are 



232 The Church of the Fathers. 

not to destroy error by force and violence, but 
should work the salvation of men by persuasion, 
instruction, and love." Augustine spoke at one 
time to the same effect, but generally inculcated 
the strict literal fulfillment of the Saviour's com- 
mandment: "Compel them to come in." He 
strangely believed physical compulsion was ^there- 
by meant and enjoined, and so a narrow, hard the- 
ology made a great-hearted man cruel and false. 

Theodosius the Great (392-395) made the visit- 
ing of heathen temples for religious purposes a 
crime with heavy penalties. The performance of 
any pagan rites or ceremonies was prohibited. In 
408, Honorius denied to pagans the right of hold- 
ing office, either civil or military. In 415 a terri- 
ble outbreak, directed by Archbishop Cyril, oc- 
curred in Alexandria, in which Hypatia, honored 
for virtue and beauty of life, as well as for learn- 
ing, was cruelly cut to pieces by shells in the 
hands of a frantic mob of Nitrian monks, and then 
burned. 

Under Theodosius II. the temples were ordered 
to be everywhere destroyed orturned into churches. 
Justinian, in 539, closed the famous school of phi- 
losophy at Athens, which had been in existence 
for nine centuries, and drove its seven teachers — 
who kept up the tradition of the ancient Seven 
Wise Men of Greece — into exile, which they 
chose rather than a forced change of faith. This 
same emperor made adherence to paganism a crime 
to be punished with death. 



Worship, Ritual, and Observances. 233 

Thus varied for some generations the tide of 
power, and with it the tide of persecution. 

3. Pagan Survivals in Christianity. 

14 All things are yours." "Prove a!l things, hold fast that 
which is good." — St. Paul. 

11 For good, wherever found, is a property of truth." — Socrates 
(Scholasticus). 

Violent transitions are opposed to the nature and 
laws of the mind, alike of civilized and uncivilized. 
The worshipers of heathen gods had to be led grad- 
ually and by devious routes to new altars. They 
perhaps could not have been induced at all to 
make the change had they not perceived in the 
new cult features familiar to them in the old, and 
doctrines similar, but better, and rites of kindred 
nature, only more significant, and all richer in the 
power of a new and diviner life, more satisfying 
to mind and soul. 

In the catacombs Christ is represented now as 
Apollo surrounded, as he strikes the lyre, by the 
Grecian muses; now as the shepherd Apollo, 
piping among the sheep of Admetus; and again 
as Orpheus, leading captive and tamed the wild 
beasts, which are charmed by the harmony of his 
doctrines. Scriptural and mythological scenes are 
freely mixed in the sepulchral carvings. The but- 
terfly, the classic representation of Psyche (the 
soul), and the three Graces, either painted or 
carved, adorn these tombs. The myths of Bac- 
chus, the god of the vintage, and of Mercury, the 



234 The Church of the Fathers. 

messenger of the Olympian theocracy, are depict- 
ed amidst the scenes of patriarch and prophet. 

All this is significant of a general process, name- 
ly, the incorporation of pagan symbols, rites, and 
usages into Christianity. The extent to which it 
was carried would doubtless surprise the reader 
before unacquainted with the facts. As a further 
illustration, chosen out of many available, the wor- 
ship of the Virgin Mary, which arose in Syria, 
came natural to that people who were accustomed 
to worship Astarte, whose counterpart was Venus 
Urania in the West, and the Queen of Heaven in 
Af rica. The worship of saints as heavenly patrons 
and guardians came easy to peoples accustomed to 
honor patron gods and goddesses. 

It was the Christian custom, furthermore, to sub- 
stitute their own festivals for the heathen ones, 
and thus to meet the demands of human nature in 
her usages. There were scarcely fewer, it is said, 
than one hundred festival days in the pagan calen- 
dar. Who, in view of this social fact, can wonder 
at the multitude which the Church found it expe- 
dient to adopt or devise? Christmas, to instance 
one, probably was originated at Rome to take the 
place, with its beautiful and eternal significance, 
of the corrupt Saturnalia, or festivities in honor of 
Saturn. "Heathen writers constantly taunt the 
Christians with the substitution of a new idolatry 
for the old." In the mouth of their dead they 
placed a coin, as the heathen did for boat pay to 
Charon. At the tombs they had festive gather- 



Worship, Ritual, and Observances, 235 

ings, and ate, drank, and danced, often to excess, 
and to the reproach of the Name; this in imita- 
tion of the pagan custom of propitiation of the 
manes, or the shades, of ancestors. 

When Constantine laid the foundation of nis 
new seat of empire on the Bosphorus, he used the 
elaborate ancient pagan ritual dedicated lmmemo- 
rially to this service. And even when he built 
Christian churches, he gave them classic names: 
one was called St. Sophia (wisdom), and another 
St. Eirene (peace). 

A custom which aided the bringing in of hea- 
then rites was that of building a Christian shrine, 
or church, on the spot where one of the older cult 
had been destroyed. St. Martin, in Gaul, and St. 
Augustine, in England, followed this systematically. 
Where the cathedral of Canterbury now stands, to 
commemorate the landing of St. AiiPnstine and 
his meeting with King Ethelbert, formerly stood a 
heathen shrine, which the planter of the new faith 
removed. He even permitted the heathen con- 
verts to continue their animal sacrifices in the 
church. Heathen, like children, are educated 
but slowly; and the Church is for the education 
of the human race. 

4. Hymnology. 

The Psalms were the first hymns of the Chris- 
tian people; for "the Psalter . . . springs from 
the deep fountains of the human heart in its se- 
cret communion with God, and gives classic ex- 



236 The Church of the Fathers* 

pression to the religious experience of all men in 
every age and tongue." But it was not long be- 
fore they had a sacred and beautiful hymnology 
of their own. 

The Magnificat of Mary in the first chapter 
of Luke, the Gloria in Excelsis of the heavenly 
host, and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon in the sec- 
ond chapter, become common hymns in regular 
use in the Church. St. Paul's epistles, as well as 
the Apocalypse, contain fragments of early hymns ; 
a beautiful example occurs in Ephesians v. 14: 

Awake, thou that sleepest, 

And arise from the dead, 

And Christ shall shine upon thee. 

The Te Deum, now known only in its late Lat- 
in form and ascribed to St. Ambrose, was of sec- 
ond or third century Greek origin. St. Ignatius, 
according to tradition, composed antiphonies, or 
responsive songs, probably on the model of the 
antiphonal psalms. In the second century the 
gnostic Bardesanes and his son Harmonius wrote 
as many as one hundred and fifty hymns for fes- 
tivals. Eusebius quotes a writer of the close of 
the second century who, in the defense the divin- 
ity of Christ, wrote against the Artemonites: 
46 How many psalms and odes of the Christians 
are there not, which have been written from the 
beginning by believers, and which, in their theol- 
ogy, praise Christ as the Logos of God?" Clem- 
ent of Alexandria wrote a notable poem with this 
intention. A translation of it begins as follows: 



Worship) Ritual^ and Observances. 237 

Bridle of colts untamed, 

Over our wills presiding; 
Wing of unwandering birds, 

Our flight securely guiding; 
Rudder of youth unbending, 

Firm against adverse shock; 
Shepherd, with wisdom tending 

Lambs of the royal flock ; 
Thy simple children bring 
In one, that they may sing 
In solemn lays 
Their hymns of praise 
With guileless lips to Christ their King. 

Ephraim the Syrian, adopting the tunes and me- 
ters of the gnostics, composed other words free 
from heretical teachings, and his hymns came 
into popular use. Gregory Nazianzen was a pro- 
lific poet, but wrote no hymns that entered into 
general favor. St. Anatolius, patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, did the most to make Greek hymnolo- 
gy poetic and beautiful for common use. A stan- 
za in translation of a hymn on Christ's birth is as 
follows : 

While thus they sing your Monarch, 

Those bright angelic bands, 
Rejoice, ye vales and mountains! 

Ye oceans, clap your hands! 

With the name of Ambrose some of the most 
excellent early hymns in Latin are associated; 
but of the Ambrosian collection only about ten 
or twelve are now assigned to him with certain- 
ty. The Latin titles of some of these — and it 
is well to know them by their classic designation 
— are Vent, JRedemfitor Gentium, Deus Creator 



238 The Church of the Fathers. 

Omnium, and Sterne Rerum Conditor. They 
are stately in diction and movement. The Te 
Deum Laudamus, the Church's most celebrated 
doxology, is one of the Ambrosian group, though, 
as above noted, it has a much earlier form in 
Greek. To St. Augustine also some beautiful 
songs are attributed, chief of which are Cum 
Rex Glorice Christus — a resurrection hymn — 
and Ad Perennis Vitce Rontem Mens Sitivit 
Arida. His acknowledgment of the power of 
church music over him is one of the most beau- 
tiful passages in his "Confessions": "Nor was 
I satiated in those days with the wondrous sweet- 
ness of considering the depth of thy counsels 
concerning the salvation of the human race. How 
greatly did I weep in thy hymns and canticles, 
deeply moved by the voices of thy sweet-speak- 
ing Church ! The voices flowed into mine ears, 
and the truth was poured forth in my heart, 
whence the agitation of my piety overflowed, and 
my tears ran over, and blessed was I therein." 

Other noteworthy hymn-writers were Hilary 
of Poitiers (died 368), Prudentius, most gifted 
and fruitful of early Christian poets (died 405), 
Fortunatus (died about 600), and Gregory the 
Great (died 604). The beautiful titles of the 
chief hymns, unmentioned before, of this time run 
as follows: Urbs Beata Jerusalem, Ave Marts 
Stella, Salvete, Flores Martyrum, Range Lin- 
gua, Primo Dierum Ormnium. One of the glo- 
ries of the Church is her golden treasury of song. 



Worship, Ritual, and Observances. 239 

5. Liturgies and Festivals. 

In early Church history the word " liturgy" 
(Greek leitourgia, public service, worship) de- 
notes the form of service used in the Lord's Sup- 
per. There are some four or five liturgical "fam- 
ilies," named after the churches which originated 
and used them, as follows: the Palestinian, the 
A lexandrian , the Roman , the Galilean , and the Per- 
sian. These began to be formed very early, and 
gradually assumed the elaborate length which they 
now possess. Some of the particular liturgies, in- 
cluded in one or other of the groups named, may be 
as old as the second century. The oldest bear the 
names of St. Luke, St. James, St. Mark, and St. 
Clement. Any one of them occupied, perhaps, 
between two and three hours in its perform- 
ance. 

The different parts of the service given here 
(from the "Ante-Nicene Fathers") will indicate 
to the reader the elaborateness of early worship. 
There are two main divisions of the liturgy, or 
service — that before the lifting up of the elements 
and that after; and these are further subdivided. 
The whole scheme stands ,^s here given: 



I. 
Liturgy (or Mis- 
sa=Mass) o f < 
the Catechu 
mens. 



1. The Preparatory Prayers. 

2. The Initial Hymn, or Introit. 

3. The Little Entrance. 

4. The Trisagion. 

5. The Lections. 

6. The Prayers after the Gospel, and 

Expulsion of the Catechumens. 



240 



The Church of the Fathers. 



1. The Prayers of the Faithful. 

2. The Great Entrance. 

3. The Offertory. 

4. The Kiss of Peace. 
The Creed. 
The Preface. 

The Prayer of the Triumphal Hymn. 
The Triumphal Hymn. 
Commemoration of Our Lord's Life. 
Commemoration of Institution. 

6. Words of Institution of the Piread. 

7. Words of Institution of the Wine. 
8„ Oblation of the Body and Blood. 
9. Introductory Prayer for the Descent 

of the Holy Ghost. 

10. Prayer for the SanctificatJon of Ele- 
ments. 

11. General Intercession for Quick and 
Dead. 

12. Prayer before the Lord's Prayer. 

13. The Lord's Prayer. 

14. The Embolismus. 

15. The Prayerof Inclination. 

16. The Holy Things for Holy Persons, 

17. The Fraction 

18. The Confession. 

19. The Communion. 

20. The Antidoron; and Prayers of 
Thanksgiving. 

The origin of the Roman Catholic mass (missa) 
— for each of the main divisions of the service is 
called missa, mass — and indeed of all liturgies, is 
now known to the reader. Doubtless, however, 
to understand the Christian institution in its gene- 
sis he must go even back to the Mosaic system of 
celebrating the sacrifice of the Passover, as given 
in the Pentateuch. It was, in reality, a divine dra- 



Liturgy (or Mis 
sa M ass) of < 
the Faithful. 

II. 
The Great Eu- 
charistic 
Prayer. 



The Consecra- 
tion. 



The Great In- 
ter c e s sor y 
Prayer. 



The Communion. 



Worship, Ritual^ and Observances. 241 

ma, and in essential features bore a striking re- 
semblance to the Greek Dionysian festivals. 

The different vestments of the several priestly 
orders also originate in this early time. They are 
fully described in the "Apostolic Constitutions "of 
the fourth century. The alba, or tunic, of the dea- 
con was an inner white garment, and originally but 
a workingman's shirt. It developed into the sur- 
plice. The pallium was the Roman toga, or over- 
cloak. It is now the pall of the archbishop. The 
miter, now worn by the highest Church dignita- 
ries, was originally the common headdress of no- 
bles, and later of peasants. The stole, by which 
name, originally, the entire dress was designated, 
and later but the handkerchief, is now but a nar- 
row band of silk ribbon worn on the shoulder or 
breast of different grades of clergy. Both Jewish 
and heathen customs influenced the practice of the 
Church in the matter of vestments. 

Various days came early to be kept. The first day 
of the week was observed earliest, as the " Lord's 
day," in commemoration of his resurrection. It 
was a day of rejoicing, and did not for some gen- 
erations supplant the Jewish sabbath as a sacred 
day of rest, but was observed alongside of that. 
Wednesday and Friday — the one in memory of the 
condemnation of Christ, and the other in memory 
of his passion — were kept by fasting, and were 
known as "Station days." The mannerof keeping 
Ash Wednesday, Passion Week, Good Friday, and 
Easter — which was the first day of the new year, as 
>6 



242 The Church of the Fathers. 

the Lord's day was the first of the week — is care- 
fully described in the "Apostolic Constitutions." 
Epiphany, Pentecost, Whitsunday, Palm Sunday, 
Ascension, and Christmas, were annual days that 
came early to be kept with rejoicings. Christmas 
is traceable as far back as the fourth century. 
The definite day has no historical basis. "Martyr 
days'' were also kept with festivities at the tombs 
of those who died for the faith ; with festivities, for 
the day of the martyrdom of a saint was regarded 
as his birthday to true life. The early Church was 
very strict in the observance both of fasts and fes- 
tivals, both of which were exceedingly numerous. 
They were educative and disciplinary and memo- 
rializing. 

6. Saints, Relics, and Miracles. 

The worship of saints and angels in the early 
Church has in its origin a twofold connection : on 
the one hand, it arose, in the case of saint worship, 
out of a natural but excessive desire to honor the 
martyrs ; and on the other hand, it entered into the 
place formerly occupied by the worship of "the 
gods many and lords many " of the Gentiles. In- 
deed, the Trinity itself , in popular conception, be- 
came little better than a triad of gods; that is, it 
was polytheism reduced to tritheism. 

Let us be reasonable, not to say charitable, in 
judging the early adherents of the Christian faith. 
The Church of to-day may have its cherished su- 
perstitions as essential to its life, its fancies, as 



Worship, Ritual^ and Observances. 243 

Micah's gods were of old to his welfare. "Ye 
have taken away my gods which I have made," 
he cries, " and what have I more? " In that time 
Gideon, we read — Gideon, the mighty man of 
valor — broke down his father's altar and built a 
new one, " in the orderly manner " It was, truly, 
a bold deed and unfilial enough. There was every- 
thing in it to shock those who speak more about 
loyalty to custom than to truth, and more about 
faithfulness to the " Fathers " than to the Father. 

In the temple the boy Jesus declared a higher 
loyalty than earth is entitled to claim when he sig- 
nificantly said, " Wist ye not that I must be about 
my Father's business? " In the interest of a pure 
and true religion, let error and superstition be ex- 
posed, and let the idols be removed out of the tem- 
ple of the God " who ever lives and loves." 

The Christian patron saint, with whom every 
trade and fraternity, city, sacred place, and per- 
son, was provided, reminds one only too forcibly 
of the pagan deity and genius loci. Those heav- 
enly patrons are manifestly only the lares and 
fenates of pagan Rome under a thin Christian dis- 
guise. Prayers to the saints, sometimes very noble 
in character, were offered by the best and wisest 
of the Church Fathers. Gregory Nazianzen offers 
the following to Athanasius: "Look graciously 
down upon us, and dispose this people to be per- 
fect worshipers of the perfect Trinit)^; and when 
the times are quiet, preserve us; when they are 
troubled, remove us and take us to thee in fellow- 



244 The Church of the Fathers. 

ship." It is difficult to see how Christ himself 
would be invoked differently. For the saints were 
regarded as intercessors with God, and, by show- 
ing their stigmata, or marks of martyrdom, could, 
as Chrysostom says, "persuade the King to any- 
thing." And says St. Augustine: "They who 
have washed away their sins by their own blood 
may pray for sins." Some truth, therefore, was 
in the charge of Faustus: " Ye have changed the 
idols into martyrs, whom ye worship with the like 
prayers, and ye appease the shades of the dead 
with wine and flesh." 

Indeed, a Christian mythology speedily grew up 
— or, rather, the old pagan mythology was in part 
adopted and infused with Christian ideas. For 
example, the martyr Phocas became, instead of 
Castor and Pollux, the patron of Christian sailors, 
who set aside a share of their meal for him as a 
thank offering. Furthermore, the feasts to the 
gods were replaced by saints' days and Christian 
festivals. The deification of men was common 
among the Greeks and Romans, and therefore it 
is hardly strange that the ecumenical councilors 
should apply the epithet " divine " to Constantine 
and other emperors who championed the faith. 

It may be presumed, and in fact is well es- 
tablished, that, along with so many customs of 
greater or less significance, some ideas were also 
brought over from heathenism into Christianity. 
How could this fail to happen at a time when most 
of the converts to the new faith were born and 



Worship, Ritual, and Observances. 245 

bred in pagan cults? However, there was advan- 
tage in some aspects of this process of assimila- 
tion; for instance, the pagan custom of apotheo- 
sizing men and the conception of guardian deities 
made belief in a living, divine Christ and his com- 
panionship and guidance an easy matter. 

Providence has a wider scope than is possible 
for human vision to compass. Pious fraud, super- 
stitious imagination, and quick credulity assisted 
in bringing the heathen world to Christ, although 
we cannot justify these things by any manner of 
means, nor practice them with impunity. 

To the custom of keeping saints' days was due 
the wonderful growth of legends, which, notwith- 
standing their multitude of incredible miracles, 
constitute one of the most priceless heritages of 
the Church. And from honoring the memory of 
the saints, together with the doctrine of the resur- 
rection of the body, arose the habit of esteeming, 
and soon of worshiping, their relics. In the Smyr- 
nasans* account of the martyrdom of Polycarp, 
they write: "And so we afterwards took up his 
bones, which are more valuable than precious stones 
and finer than refined gold, and laid them in a 
suitable place; where the Lord will permit us to 
gather ourselves together, as we are able, in glad- 
ness and joy, and to celebrate the birthday of his 
martyrdom for the commemoration of those that 
have already fought in the contest, and for the 
training and preparation of those that shal r do so 
hereafter." 



246 The Church of the Fathers. 

Here is the whole matter as early as A.D. 155. 
The trade in relics early became general and prof- 
itable, and not a little deception was practiced. In 
the year 386 Theodosius prohibited it in vain: 
the Church Fathers too generally encouraged it. 
Chaucer's description of the fourteenth century 
monk with his " pigges bones " is true, doubtless, 
for the priest of the fourth century. The use of 
these relics as ornaments and amulets was very 
common, and the attribution of healing virtue to 
them was well-nigh universal. Augustine asserts 
that seventy well-attested cures were effected in 
Hippo. Jerome and others of like eminence testify 
to many other miracles thus wrought, as curing the 
blind and raising the dead. The careful student 
of those times must come to the conclusion that the 
Church Fathers were lacking in some respects in 
a sense of truth, and that the age was character- 
ized by "pious fraud" and almost incredible cre- 
dulity. The all-justifying motto seemed to be, Ad 
major am Dei gloriam. 

The Scriptures, it cannot be denied, afford am- 
ple ground for belief in miracles wrought through 
the agency of relics. Elisha's bones impart life to 
the dead man cast in his tomb upon them. The 
touch of Jesus' garment heals the issue of blood. 
Even Peter's shadow is said to have had a healing 
efficacy; and handkerchiefs and aprons that Paul 
has used cure many sick. 

Chapels are therefore built at the tombs of mar- 
tyrs, and the sick of all manner of diseases are 



Worship, Ritual^ a?id Observances. 247 

brought thither as formerly they were brought to 
the temple of ^Esculapius. " Superstition! " we 
may exclaim, but this faith in that age afforded the 
only balm for earth-worn bodies as also for earth- 
wounded spirits. Besides, the Church is a univer- 
sally educative institution. It takes into its train- 
ing the barbarian and the Greek as well as the Jew, 
the foolish and simple as well as the wise and 
learned, the young as well as the old ; it must train 
all. It takes not the perfect, but the imperfect, to 
discipline, educate, and develop to higher modes 
of thought and life. As long as it advances it will 
outgrow the uses of certain methods, doctrines, 
and institutions, which once served an excellent 
purpose. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

1. "Christian Institutions," by Dean Stanley, is a readable 
and instructive book that treats of many topics of the foregoing 
chapter. 

2. A. V. G. Allen's "Christian Institutions," in the "Inter- 
national Theological Library," is a fascinating book. The two 
books go well together. 



MONASTICISM. 



"Monasticism had stood for the idea that human salvation 
was not a mechanical process by which the collective mass of 
humanity, within the communion of the Church, was to be 
lifted by no effort of its own in the kingdom of heaven. It was 
a protest in behalf of the truth, which in the Middle Ages most 
needed to be emphasized, that salvation demands the activity of 
all the faculties of one's being. In this aspect Monasticism was 
the assertion of the truth of individual responsibility. It de- 
clined as an institution because of the fearful perversion of 
which it had been guilty — the abuse which it had heaped on 
things most divine, the neglect with which it had treated a large 
range of human duties and relationships, whose right discharge 
is essential to the fullest salvation of man. But it did not de- 
cline till the truth which it had conserved — the principle of in- 
dividualism — had been acknowledged as the basis of the com- 
ing reform." — A. V. G. Allen. 

( 2 5°) 



CHAPTER XII. 

MONASTICISM. 

14 In the world, but not worldly." 

" In hopes to merit heaven by making earth a hell." 

"They were strangers to the world, but friends to God." 

— Thomas a Kempis. 
"And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness 
overcame it not." — St. John. 

i. Origin, Spirit, and Aim. 

The institution of Monasticism has been fre- 
quently spoken of in the foregoing pages. It is 
now time to narrate more fully its history, and to 
describe at length its nature and significance. Al- 
though not a Christian institution in its origin, yet 
so thoroughly was it taken up by the disciples of 
Him who taught self-renunciation as the first law 
of life, that it became from the third to the fif- 
teenth century the most conspicuous and signifi- 
cant fact of Christendom. Both as regards the 
inner and outer life of the Church — its moral and 
educational functions, its civilizing agencies, and 
its material prosperity — its influences and its 
achievements of every kind, Monasticism was the 
efficient spirit and agency. And the fruits were 
both good and evil, with the main emphasis upon 
"good." 

To the student of history it is a familiar fact in 
various religions of the ancient world, notably in 

(*50 



252 The Church of the Fathers. 

the faith of the Brahmans of India, as described in 
the old " Vedas" — the psalms of that people; and 
later, in the same country, in the worship of Gau- 
tama Buddha, the " Light of Asia"; and also in 
Egypt in the later developments of their extraor- 
dinary cults. In the time of Christ, the most nota- 
ble exhibition of monastic life and the most signifi- 
cant for Christianity, was with the Essenes, one of 
the three sects of the Jews. 

Josephus writes an interesting chapter concern- 
ing this very interesting sect. The noteworthy 
features of their practice are these: Communism, 
all property, even food and clothing, being held 
in common; extreme simplicity of life, their com- 
mon occupation being husbandry; a strict tem- 
perance in all things, which, though not asceticism, 
yet tended thereto; contempt for the body as a 
prison house of the spirit, and doomed to perish 
forever. Their repudiation of oaths and of mar- 
riage, of trade and slavery, of all animal sacrifices, 
and of any priesthood whatsoever, was a remark- 
able anticipation of the ethical and ascetic princi- 
ples which became the rule of life for millions of 
Christians. What was their aim? " It was the 
higher illumination, the reception of revelations 
especially by dream visions, which they sought 
in this way to attain," 

Influences from Parseeism, from Buddhism, and 
from Pythagoreanism — all of which contain strik- 
ingly similar elements — are supposed by different 
historians to have entered into Pharisaism, and, 



Monasticism . 253 

working together with tendencies already in opera- 
tion, to have produced Essenism ; a higher out- 
come both ethically and spiritually. These di- 
verse influences are certainly known to have been 
potent in Palestine from at least the beginning of 
the second century B.C., and it was about the 
middle of this century that the Essenes arose. It 
was toward the close of the first century A.D. 
that Josephus wrote. Their influence upon Chris- 
tian life and customs is a disputed matter. The 
unity of spirit — indicating a general tendency of 
ardently religious natures — is the only fact desired 
here to be established by these examples of asceti- 
cism. 

It was in Egypt, the mother of religions, as well 
of arts and sciences, that Christian Monasticism 
had its rise: it was there, it should be noted, that 
the Therapeutae dwelt — the most ascetic branch of 
the Essenes. Of some of the first Christian her- 
mits of note we have interesting early biographies: 
the lives of Sts. Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by 
Jerome; of St. Anthony, by Athanasius; of St. 
Martin of Tours, by Gregory; indeed, of a larger 
number there are memorials dating from an early 
time. The historians Socrates and Sozomen give 
us accounts of the origin and progress, the customs 
and aims, of monk life. 

A zealot by the name of Paul, in the third cen- 
tury, in Egypt, was the first to seek the solitude of 
the desert to dwell as a hermit. " He was heir," 
says Jerome, "to a rich inheritance, highly skilled 



254 The Church of the Fathers. 

in both Greek and Egyptian learning, gifted with 
a gentle disposition and a deep love for God. 
Amid the thunders of persecution, he retired to 
a house at a considerable distance and in a more 
secluded spot. 

Anthony came soon after. Of him the same 
biographer writes: "The blessed Paul had al- 
ready lived on earth the life of heaven for a hun- 
dred and thirteen years, and Anthony at the age 
of ninety was dwelling in another place of solitude 
(as he himself was wont to declare), when the 
thought occurred to the latter that no monk more 
perfect than himself had settled in the desert. 
However, in the stillness of the night it was re- 
vealed to him that there was, further in the desert, 
a much better man than he, and that he ought to 
go and visit him. So then at break of day the 
venerable old man, supporting and guiding his 
weak limbs with a staff, started to go; but what 
direction to choose he knew not. Scorching noon- 
tide came, with a broiling sun overhead, but still 
he did not suffer himself to be turned from the 
journey he had begun. Said he, 'I believe in my 
God: some time or other he will show me the fel- 
low-servant whom he promised me.' He said no 
more. All at once he beholds a creature of min- 
gled shape — half horse, half man — called by the 
poets Hippo-centaur." 

The reader must be prepared, in perusing these 
early "lives," for the most marvelous marvels im- 
aginable. Anthony, near the end of his journey, 



Monastzcism. 255 

had already the privilege of seeing the blessed 
Paul "in robes of snowy white ascending on high 
among the bands of angels and the choirs of 
prophets and apostles. ' ' Two lions helped him dig 
the grave and bury the body, coming to him at 
the end of their task and fawning for a blessing. 
The conclusion of this narrative is interesting: 
"I beseech you, reader, whoever you may be, to 
remember Jerome, the sinner. He, if God would 
give him his choice, would much sooner take Paul's 
tunic with his merits than the purple of kings with 
their punishment." 

Anthony, as Athanasius relates, dwelt first in a 
tomb in the desert, where he was harassed by 
devils and annoyed by gathering multitudes emu- 
lous to follow his example. He removed further 
from the habitations of men and took up his abode 
in an old abandoned fort, where "he employed a 
long time in training himself, and received loaves 
let down from above twice in the year." 

The spirit and motives of this life will be amply 
set forth by an extract from a discourse of An- 
thony's when his acquaintances sought him out 
in the old fort: "Why, then, should we not give 
them up for virtue's sake, that we may inherit 
even a kingdom? Therefore let the desire of 
possession take hold of no one, for what gain is 
it to acquire these things which we cannot take 
with us? Why not rather get those things which 
we can take away with us, to wit, prudence, jus- 
tice, temperance, courage, understanding, love, 



256 The Church of the Fathers. 

kindness to the poor, faith in Christ, freedom 
from wrath, hospitality? If we possess these, we 
shall find them of themselves preparing for us 
a welcome there in the land of the meek-hearted. 
. For the Lord aforetime hath said, 'The 
kingdom of heaven is within you.' Wherefore 
virtue hath need at our hands of willingness alone, 
since it is in us and is formed from us. For when 
the soul hath its spiritual faculty in a natural state, 
virtue is formed. And it is in a natural state when 
it remains as it came into existence. And when 
it came into existence it was fair and exceeding 
honest." 

It was "spiritual knowledge" and the "philos- 
ophy of deeds," as Socrates expresses it, that the 
hermits sought. Their lives, according to his 
conception, were truly apostolic; and undoubted- 
ly those doctrines just quoted are very wise. They 
are worthy of the best mind of the Reformation. 

Attention has been called in a foregoing chap- 
ter to the fact that Monasticism, like Montanism 
of an earlier day, was in a measure a reaction 
against a growing spirit of ecclesiasticism, ritual- 
ism, and sacerdotalism. The monks sought im- 
mediate intercourse with God without the aid of 
church, altar, priest, or sacrament. Formalism 
and ritualism were rejected ; the spirit, the pow- 
er, and the life were sought in an independent 
way. They reverted to apostolic simplicity. And 
so did the reformers ten centuries later. Tran- 
quillity was the state desired — peace that should 



Monasticisin. 257 

allow the virtues of temperance, patience, and love 
opportunity to grow. " One of the brethren," says 
Socrates, "who possessed nothing but a copy of 
the gospels, sold it and distributed the price in 
food to the hungry, uttering this memorable say- 
ing: 'I have sold the book which says, Sell that 
thou hast, and give to the poor.'" "My book," 
once said Anthony to a wondering philosopher 
who had visited him, "my book is the nature of 
things that are made, and it is present whenever I 
wish to read the words of God." 

That these hermits, at least the best or them, 
were not seeking heaven in a selfish way, enough 
has been given to prove. "That pillar of truth, 
Basil of Cappadocia," remarked Socrates, "used 
to say that ' the knowledge which men teach is 
perfected by constant study and exercise ; but that 
which proceeds from the grace of God, by the 
practice of justice, patience, and mercy.' ' 

The monks were first organized into a commu- 
nity to be trained by Pachomius, in the island of 
Tabenna in the Thebaid. An angel, so Sozomen 
relates, appeared to this hermit- saint and gave 
him the command to this end and a tablet, "which 
is still carefully preserved," whereon were writ- 
ten the rules that should govern the order. The 
monks were to wear sleeveless tunics, cowls, and 
girdles, each of which garments had its special 
significance ; in these they were to sleep in re- 
clining chairs, expressive of their readiness for 
immediate service when called. They were to eat 
l 7 



258 The Church of the Fathers. 

in a common refectory, silent and veiled. They 
partook of the communion on the first and last 
days of the week; they prayed twelve times in 
the day, and an equal number of times in the 
night. 

From Egypt Monasticism spread into Palestine. 
It was there that Hilarion, inflamed by the desire 
to emulate St. Anthony, went into the dangers of 
solitude, " despising death that he might escape 
death," says Jerome. Soon he too had many 
zealous imitators, and the wilderness became a 
populous city. 

In Syria the movement is shortly after led by 
Ephraim, "the prophet of the Syrians." He 
gave not only the first impulse to the movement 
there, but he determined the language of Monas- 
ticism in all countries. He was a copious writer 
both in verse and prose, and a sort of poetic mys- 
ticism, akin to that of the gnostics, was allied in 
him with the most rigid orthodoxy. He was just 
of the nature to give the institution of Monasti- 
cism, already implanted in his country and find- 
ing there a congenial soil, an impetus and charac- 
ter which should be perpetual. "With this imag- 
inative turn," says Dean Milman, "were mingled 
a depth and intensity of feeling which gave him 
his peculiar influence over the kindred minds of 
his countrymen. Tears were as natural to him as 
perspiration; day and night, in his devout seclu- 
sion, he wept for the sins of mankind and for his 
own. His very writings, it was said, weep; there 



Monasticis7n . 259 

is a deep and latent sorrow even in his panegyrics, 
or festival homilies." Out of such a nature rose 
Monasticism. The poetic bent and tender melan- 
choly of his nature are not to be overlooked. As 
a song-writer he is called "the guitar of the Holy 
Ghost"; as a preacher he possessed a fervid and 
effective eloquence. 

By Jerome, as we have seen, the doctrines and 
practice of Monasticism were brought to the cap- 
ital of the West; and by John Cassian, who was 
educated in Syria, and by Sts. Martin and Hilary 
it was planted in Gaul, in the latter part of the 
fourth century. What were the conditions which 
caused Monasticism to spread so rapidly and flour- 
ish so vigorously ? 

2. The Barbarian Invasions. 

The story of the barbarian invasions must be 
told, albeit but hurriedly, that we may appreciate 
the history of the Church in this period. For all 
its tasks w r ere imposed, all its policies and institu- 
tions were determined, by the new conditions which 
resulted from or attended the breaking up of the 
ancient foundations and the removal of the ancient 
landmarks of the Roman empire, and the forma- 
tion of new states out of the warlike and roving 
tribes of the North. 

In the days of the republic, while the thought 
of Rome's decline was as remote from the mind of 
her citizens as that of the end of the world, the 
Celtic barbarians — the Kymri and the Belgas — had 



260 The Church of the Fathers. 

not only stood upon the Alps in picturesque and 
savage grandeur, looking down upon the fair fields 
of Italy with plunderous intent, but not less pictur- 
esquely and with terror to the Romans had turned 
their ox-hide shields into toboggans, and coasted 
with savage merriment down the snow-clad Alpine 
slopes — fair-haired, giant warriors, untutored, un- 
degenerate children of the forest — children in all 
but brawn and bone. But Caesar's cohorts in 
Gaul and along the Rhine had made the name of 
Rome terrible to these children of the forest, and 
Rome with her garrisons upon the frontiers had 
rested for centuries in safety from their invasions. 
But her decline and her hoarded wealth — the 
spoils of so many conquests — could not forever re- 
main unknown to the restless tribes of the popu- 
lous North; for there were many barbarians in the 
imperial armies, some holding high official rank. 

In the year 375 occurred the first notable inva- 
sion in the era of Christianity. It was the Visi- 
goths, a numerous and powerful tribe of Teutons, 
from beyond the Danube ; whence southward they 
were driven, by fierce and still more numerous 
Tartar hordes from the steppes of Asia. This 
Gothic nation, with all their belongings, their 
wives and children, and live stock, coming to the 
Danube, entreated the Romans for shelter and for 
lands on which to dwell under Roman protection. 
Valens, " low-born, cruel, and covetous," was em- 
peror. 

On condition of their changing their type of 



Monasticism . 261 

Christianity, which was Arian, they were permitted 
to find settlement in Roman territory. Those who 
were set to count them as they crossed the river 
gave up the impossible task. Tall, stalwart, and 
well formed, with neck and arms encircled by 
gold and silver rings, with shirts of chain mail, and 
enormous helmets surmounted by plumes, bison 
horns, towers, and images of dragons and wild 
boars, this proud and powerful host was soon not 
to be the suppliant of Rome but the conqueror. 
For it was not long ere their haughty masters be- 
gan to subject them to ill treatment, and it was then 
their proud, free spirit rose in rebellion. They 
swept the country, laid waste the fields, and plun- 
dered the towns. Then they met the Romans on 
the field of battle, and w r ith their heavy swords and 
long lances put to rout and destroyed two-thirds of 
the imperial army, slew generals without number, 
and burned the emperor. 

Now followed out of the North wave after wave 
of the mighty deluge which was to continue near- 
ly two hundred years pouring southward. First, 
in the year 395, in midwinter, comes another 
horde of Visigoths under Alaric, an indomitable 
chief, without opposition. They cross the Danube 
on the ice, pour first down through Greece, pass- 
ing Thermopylae unchecked, capturing Athens, 
Corinth, and Sparta, and in the year 410, in their 
career of easy conquest, take the city of Rome. 
For five days and nights the city is given up to pil- 
lage, and its inhabitants to slaughter. Only the 



262 The Church of the Fathers. 

Christians and their temples — a fact made much 
use of by St. Augustine in his "City of God" — 
were respected and spared. 

Again out of the North, " the land of night and 
wonder and the terrible unknown," the Goths are 
followed by the Huns under Attila, "the scourge 
of God." This was in the year 451. We have a 
description of his Mongol and mongrel horde of 
six hundred thousand followers. Of Asiatic origin 
and Mongolian type, they were pig-eyed, cake- 
faced, wore rat-skin caps, and clung like cats to 
their horses, which were impressively adorned with 
human scalps. On horseback they ate, slept, 
marketed, plundered, and lived: a host "innumer- 
able as locusts," wild as red Indians, only painted 
blue, and dressed not in the skins of savage beasts 
but of human beings. Armed with bows and ar- 
rows, lassos and scythes, they struck terror to 
every heart. They devastated the Roman empire 
to the gates of the city itself; why that was spared 
is a mystery never yet explained. History has only 
this to say : Pope Leo, a great and good man, " met 
the wild heathen : a sacred horror fell upon Attila, 
and he turned and went his way to die a year or 
two after, no man knows how." 

The Huns are followed in 455 by the Vandals. 
They have given our language a word which tells 
their story: vandalisvn. Under Genseric, almost 
before the grass had begun to grow again where 
Attila 's horse had trod, Italy is again swept as by 
a blasting simoon, and the eternal city is again 



Monasticism . 263 

plundered — for fourteen days. The pillage this 
time is complete. Gold, jewels, and art treasures, 
the heaped-up wealth of ages, are carried off; 
among all, the golden table and the seven-branched 
candlestick which Titus had brought from Jerusa- 
lem when he destroyed that city, A.D. 70, are 
shipped away into Africa, to be heard of no more. 
Sixty thousand prisoners are carried away to Car- 
thage. War, famine, and pestilence wholly de- 
populated Rome. It is indeed said that the city 
was left without a single inhabitant. 

And thus horde after horde of barbarians, 
crowded on by one another, press down out of the 
frozen North, Teutons and Tartars, Goths and 
Alans, Franks and Burgunds, Huns and Vandals, 
and for a longer time than our country has had ex- 
istence, plunder and devastate the fair fields and 
populous cities of the South, leaving behind, says 
Jerome, after the first invasion, "no living thing 
but brambles and thick forests." 

The Church lived through this deluge of barbari- 
anism ; lived through it to subdue the savage races, 
and build on the ruins of the ancient cities the "City 
of God." How did it meet the situation ? The an- 
swer is, By the institution of Monasticism. 

3. The Service of Monasticism. 

From this picture of the times, though altogether 
too meager, we are able to give some idea of the 
cause of the rise and rapid spread of this institution. 
To understand its rat son d' ' etre^ the cause of its 



264 The Church of the Fathers. 

existence and influence, its wonderful popularity 
and unparalleled power as an institution, it is abso- 
lutely necessary for us to be acquainted with the 
general conditions of the times. Monasticism was 
called into existence, not only by a certain mode of 
thinking — namely, that earth must be made a hell, 
that heaven may be won — but by a deeper wisdom 
which worked at the heart of the Church, teaching 
her the secret of influence over a corrupt, pampered, 
and decadent race on the one hand, and a new, un- 
tamed, and bloodthirsty people on the other hand. 
There was the Roman world given over to luxu- 
rious and sensual living, to gormandizing, lasciv- 
iousness, and general debauchery. There was 
also the barbarian world as much wanting in self- 
restraint as regarded other appetites, and all too 
quickly a prey to the destructive vices of the cul- 
tured but corrupt nations of the South. Drunken- 
ness was always their besetting sin, and it is said 
that the wine-cellars of Italy were their greatest 
foes. The lesson of self-restraint was therefore of 
supreme necessity to the world in that age. And 
it could be taught then only as at any other time — 
that is, by such examples as would be strangely im- 
pressive. Hence, the extreme abstemiousness of 
the devout Christians. 

Another fact of the inward condition of the 
Church itself is to be borne in mind. In conse- 
quence of the union between Church and State, 
and so of the multitudinous and promiscuous in- 
gathering of heathens into the former, often by 



Monastic? sm. 265 

force of arms, the Church became filled with an 
unregenerate horde, a mass almost totally unpre- 
pared for obedience to ordinances and teachings. 
When it was no uncommon occurrence for an en- 
tire army to be converted by defeat and to receive 
baptism by thousands, what else could be expected 
than the invasion of heathen practices and gross 
immoralities into the institution which requires a 
changed mind and a pure heart ? So great had be- 
come the luxury of the clergy even that a Roman 
senator, Praetextus, said to Pope Damasus (fourth 
century), " Make me a bishop of Rome, and I will 
be a Christian to-morrow." The Church was sec- 
ularized and corrupted : a powerful reform move- 
ment was needed, enthusiasm for purity and god- 
liness, impressive lives of self-restraint and of spir- 
itual aspiration. 

Extravagant, irrational, and positively repulsive 
examples of self-mortification no doubt occur. By 
these the institution is too liable to be remembered 
and judged. Let us look deeper, penetrating to 
the spirit; let us weigh the service rendered; let 
us be mindful of the conditions of the time. 

It is in the desert land of Egypt, under the burn- 
ing tropics, that Monasticism presents itself under 
the most forbidding and reprehensible aspects. 
Their self-denial was carried to the extent of filthi- 
ness and worse than beastliness. A few illustra- 
tions may be instanced. St. Anthony, most hon- 
ored of all, eschewed the use of clean water. St. 
Macarius, having killed a gnat which was stinging 



266 The Church of the Fathers. 

him, punished himself by sleeping naked in a marsh 
where he was covered with venomous flies. St. 
Bessarion slept forty days and nights in the midst 
of thorn-bushes. St. Abraham refused during fif- 
ty years to wash either face or feet. St. Arsenius 
changed the water he used in weaving his baskets 
of rushes but once a year. Some ate only rotten 
corn, others walled themselves up so they could 
neither sit nor lie down. Yet others dwelt sum- 
mer and winter on the top of high pillars, hence 
were called " pillar saints " (cf. Tennyson's " St. 
Simeon Stylites"). 

The vast number of monks is another consider- 
ation not to be overlooked. The hermits increased 
with such rapidity that seclusion in the desert be- 
cameimpossible; from being hermits, or " monks," 
- — that is, solitaires in the desert — they became in- 
habitants of populous communities. Hence, Mo- 
nasticism became an organized institution, number- 
ing immense multitudes. One community in Egypt 
counted as many as tw r enty thousand monks and 
ten thousand nuns. Their wildness and fanati- 
cism often became ungovernable and destructive. 
Because of their boasted ignorance and frenzied 
enthusiasm, at times they were converted into dan- 
gerous mobs, being as ferocious as any savages 
that ever came out of the desert or jungle. Charles 
Kingsley in his " Hypatia" gives a faithful picture 
of the times. In their madness for orthodoxy they 
deposed and set up bishops, and by clamor decided 
what was true doctrine and what was false. This 



Monasticism. 267 

Was the turning of the pure water of life of Chris- 
tianity into the all-absorbing sands of the desert. 

One act of heroism, however, goes far toward 
redeeming this entire waste of life, so enormous 
and insane as it appears to us. The possibilities 
of this self-enjoined discipline, had not the civili- 
zation of Africa been destroyed first by the Van- 
dals and then by the Mohammedans, are splen- 
didly shown by the moral and physical courage of 
the monk Telemachus. The story runs that while 
the gladiatorial shows at Rome were in progress 
this monk came from Africa, and, appearing in the 
arena, threw himself between the combatants, and 
so sacrificed his life to prevent the deadly combat. 
His protest against the inhumanity of this heathen 
custom, which has been continued under Christian 
emperors, was so impressive that it resulted in for- 
ever putting a stop to gladiatorial combats in Rome. 
This deed of Telemachus helps to reconcile us to 
the irrational austerity and fanatical self-slaughter. 

Monasticism in Europe, as an organized com- 
munal institution, begins with St. Benedict of 
Nursia, in the mountains of Italy. The son of a 
noble family, while yet a boy he sought out a cave 
in the Apennines and devoted himself to penance, 
fasting, and prayers. His saintliness was evinced 
to the world by miracles — the usual way. It was 
impossible for his retreat to remain hidden or his 
solitude unbroken. His example drew a multitude 
into the mountains, zealous to emulate his piety. 
After living the hermit life for thirty-six years, he 



268 The Church of the Fathers. 

came forth from his retreat and founded the mon- 
astery of Monte Casino (A.D. 529), and there cre- 
ated the order of Benedictines. Out of the regime 
of his own life he drew the rules of his order, 
which, as they are typical, we may pause to note. 
Altogether they occupy seventy-three chapters, 
and they have continued unaltered for thirteen 
centuries. They fall under three heads, and per- 
tain respectively to the keeping of the threefold 
vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The 
vow of poverty required the relinquishment of all 
private possessions; all things, as in the early ex- 
periment of the Apostolic Church, were held in 
common. The vow of chastity required the re- 
linquishment of all family connections whatsoever ; 
while the vow of obedience required the most abso- 
lute self-surrender to the commands of the order. 
Steady, genuine, useful work was the noble aim 
of the Benedictine monastery, and its rules were 
all founded to this end. Its motto, indeed, was, 
"Laborare est or are" Their day was divided as 
follows: the equal time of seven hours was devoted 
to prayer, to manual labor, and to sleep; of the 
three remaining hours, two were devoted to study 
and one to meditation; they ate but two meals a' 
day. They slept in dormitories, ten or twelve 
monks in each; at two in the morning they arose 
for vigils, and at sunrise for matins. Monte Cas- 
sino became a thriving little town of gardens, 
houses, and shops. Unfortunately, the most of 
our information regarding the monasteries belongs 



Monasttctsm. 269 

to their later history after they had become wealthy 
and corrupt. In their earlier days they were no 
doubt the homes of piety, useful industry, and 
charity. These were advance and venturesome 
colonies of civilization. Each one had its school, 
where both young and old were educated; its li- 
brary, where the Holy Scriptures, the lives of the 
saints, and various kinds of moral., homiletic, and 
doctrinal treatises w T ere copied with that care and 
that beautiful art which we of to-day wonder at ; 
each had its well-tilled fields, which became mod- 
els for the barbarians; each had its solidly built 
houses, which were lessons in stone to the roving 
warrior tribes ; each was the home of plenty, of 
peace, and of piety, in a land distressed often by 
death, and distracted perpetually by war. 

The power of self-denial which flesh and blood 
are capable of, and the influence of such self-denial 
upon peoples a stranger to it, constitute the two 
supreme lessons of Monachism. When its vast 
beneficent results are considered, our revulsion at 
its incidental repugnant features greatly declines. 
This severe rigor of self-discipline, moreover, was 
a training for the arduous labors, the extreme hard- 
ships and dangers of the missionary work that was 
to be done in unbroken forests and almost impene- 
trable mountains. 

It must be also granted that a fanatical idea of 
how heaven was to be merited worked together 
with nobler motives. The same spirit was the in- 
spiration alike of martyrdom and of Monasticism. 



270 The Church of the Fathers. 

When the opportunity for martyrdom at the hands 
of pagans ceased, the zeal for bearing witness by 
suffering continued. One incentive moved to both, 
namely, to win heaven by forfeiting earth. "A 
conviction of moral unworthiness, morbidly in- 
tense," may be said to have been a chief source 
of all this mortification of the flesh. "In me — that 
is, in my flesh," cries St. Paul, "dwelleth no good 
thing." Therefore, the monks sought literally to 
crucify the body. 

Notwithstanding the forbidding features, then, 
of their lives, in many instances, we are now pre- 
pared to appreciate the great services rendered by 
the monks of the early and middle ages, as mis- 
sionaries, as colonizers, and as civilizers; services 
which, so far as we are able to discern, could have 
been performed in no other way and by no other 
class. Forests and mountains were penetrated, 
and monasteries were planted in the heart of the 
wilderness, from which the influences of a higher 
civilization radiated in every direction, to the per- 
manent advantage of mankind. Europe was tamed 
and civilized by the missionary monks. 

To trace this history to its completion would 
carry us far beyond our limits, even through the 
middle ages. Yet a part of it comes within our 
period, and that the part which most nearly con- 
cerns us as an English people, and is the most in- 
teresting every way. I refer, first, to the mission- 
ary work of the early Celtic monks ; and, second- 
ly, to the replanting of Christianity in England. 



Jlfonastzczsm. 271 

Christianity was planted in the British Isles in 
the second century; tradition places its introduc- 
tion even in the first. As early as A.D. 208, Ter- 
tullian declared that "places in Britain not yet 
visited by the Romans were subject to Christ." 
Three British bishops, in A.D. 314, were at the 
Council of Aries, in southern Gaul; these two are 
the earliest historical notices we have. Probably 
for a century after the latter date Christianity flour- 
ished among the Celts, but it was doomed almost 
to extirpation ; for in the year 410 British rule in 
the islands came to an end; and in 449 the Angles 
and Saxons, a yet heathen people, invaded the 
country and destroyed almost the last vestiges of 
Roman civilization and of Christianity. Only in 
Ireland and northwestern Scotland and in Wales 
did this early British Christianity maintain an ex- 
istence. It flourished most vigorously in Ireland, 
and from this country in the sixth century many 
bands of missionaries went out, not only into Scot- 
land and England, but into the continent. They 
went in companies of thirteen — one being the lead- 
er — representing Christ and his twelve disciples. 
St. Columba and his twelve companions, in 563, 
were the first band to go out thus; but during the 
next three hundred years many similar companies 
went on missions to other lands. 

Christianity was replanted in Britain from Rome, 
in 597. The story is famous. It is well known 
how the monk Gregory saw the fair-haired Angli- 
can slaves in the Roman market place, and, on 



272 The Church of the Fathers. 

hearing their nationality, exclaimed, "JVon Angli 
sed Angeli! " and vowed that some time he would 
take the gospel to these youths, snatched from the 
wrath of God ; how he started on this mission him- 
self, but was recalled to be made pope; how then 
he sent Augustine, with forty companions ; how in 
the year 597 they arrived upon the shores of Kent, 
and were met and welcomed by King Ethelbert, 
who said, "Your w r ords are fair, but they are new 
and of doubtful meaning," and promised to hear 
them again; how they founded the monastery of 
Canterbury, and within a year, mainly through 
the influence of his queen, Bertha, who was al- 
ready a Christian from Gaul, they had won the 
king to Christianity — all this beautiful story, told 
so naively in the "Ecclesiastical History" of Bede, 
is well known. From Kent Christianity was car- 
ried into Northumbria, and in the seventh century 
we find there the monastery of Fulda, and such a 
scholar as the " Venerable Bede," and such a poet 
as Casdmon — the one the father of English prose, 
the other of English poetry. 

From the British Isles missionaries, either singly 
or in groups, go into the heart of Germany and the 
frigid regions of the North. And thus by mission- 
ary monks was civilization carried to all the tribes 
from whose loins were to come the nations of mod- 
ern Europe. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
Charles Kingsley's "The Roman and the Teuton " is as in- 
teresting as a novel and as lofty as an epic. It is a vivid, imag- 
inative presentation of the matter with which it deals. 



THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 

iS 



"All great divergences of religion, where men are really re 
Hgious, arise from the undue dominance of some principle or 
element in our religious nature. This controversy was in truth 
the strife between two such innate principles, which philoso- 
phy despairs of reconciling, on which the New Testament has 
not pronounced with clearness or precision. The religious 
sentiment, which ever assumes to itself the excclusive name 
and authority of religion, is not content without feeling, or at 
least supposing itself to feel, the direct, immediate agency of 
God upon the soul of man. This seems inseparable from the 
divine sovereignty, even from providential government, which 
it looks like impiety to limit, and of which it is hard to conceive 
the self-limitation. Must not God's grace, of its nature, be ir- 
resistible? What can bound or fetter Omnipotence? This 
seems the first principle admitted in prayer, in all intercourse 
between the soul of man and the Infinite; it is the life-spring 
of religious enthusiasm, the vital energy, not of fanaticism only, 
but of zeal. On the other hand, there is an equally intuitive 
consciousness (and out of consciousness grows all our knowl- 
edge of these things) of the freedom, or self-determining power, 
of the human will. On this depends all morality and the sense 
of human responsibility ; all conception, except that which is 
unreasoning and instinctive, of the divine justice and mercy. 
This is the problem of philosophy; the degree of subservience 
in the human will to influences external to itself, and in no way 
self-originated or self-controlled, and to its inward self-deter- 
mining power." — Milman. 

( 2 74) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 

i. Origin of Pelagianism. 

Augustine was uncertain about the origin of 
the great heresy against which he contended. At 
first he speaks of Pelagius and Coelestius as "the 
authors, or at least as the most bitter and noted 
advocates, of the heresy." 

Jerome, writing about A.D. 413, derives the 
heresy from a multitude of sources: the Stoics 
and Pythagoreans, Origen, Rufinus, Evagrius, 
Jovian, Priscillian, Manichaeus, and others. Je- 
rome's object was doubtless to arouse odium 
against the Pelagian doctrine, and chose the way 
that had in other cases proved effective. His un- 
derstanding of the actual teachings of Pelagius 
was very imperfect. 

Much disagreement, indeed, both as to the ori- 
gin and essential nature of its doctrines, continues 
to exist to the present time. Arianism, Druidism, 
and Monasticism have each been put forward by 
modern authors as the parent of the heresy. The 
symbola jidei of Pelagians give no hint of any di- 
vergence, however, from the Trinitarianism of Ni- 
caea. Christological questions do not enter into 
the discussion in any way. As for the supposed 
origin in Druidism, this can be characterized as 

(275) 



276 The Church of the Fathers. 

fanciful. It would never have been thought of if 
Pelagius had not been a British monk. This is 
about the only basis for the view. For it must be 
admitted that, owing to the secret way of teaching 
of the Druids, we have no accurate knowledge of 
what their doctrines were. The continued preva- 
lence of Pelagianism in the British Isles, after its 
partial suppression elsewhere in the empire, may 
be explained on other grounds than that of having 
had its origin there. 

The connection with Monasticism consists in 
the supposed self-righteousness characteristic of 
both. But self-righteousness is abundantly proved 
to have been remote from the thought of the typ- 
ical monks — e.g". 9 St. Anthony, St. Macarius, and 
St. Ephraim. 

The view of Marius Mercator, the earliest his- 
torian of the controversy, writing in the fifth cen- 
tury, also claims attention: "This matter against 
the Catholic faith," he writes, "was agitated 
among certain Syrians, and especially in Cilicia, 
by Theodore, sometime bishop of Mopsuestia." 
The substance of the heresy, according to this 
writer, was in two doctrines — namely, that "the 
progenitors of the human race, Adam and Eve, 
were created mortal by God, and that they did not 
injure their posterity by their sin of transgres- 
sion." Both these tenets, which Mercator re- 
gards as containing the essence of the heresy, are 
found in Theodore. 

Rufinus, the early friend of Jerome, is said to 



The Pelagian Cont?'oversy. 277 

have been the first to bring the heresy to Rome, 
where he "deceived" and won over Pelagius. 
Mercator says he was a Syrian. The Rufinus 
against whom Jerome made the accusation of hav- 
ing brought " a ship load of the blasphemies to 
the city" is called by him an "Aquileian." This 
was under Anastasius, and is placed in the year 
399. Theodore had taught his doctrines as early 
as 390. 

2. The Conflict. 

The formal outbreak of Pelagianism was the re- 
sult of a moral and humanitarian interest. An apo- 
thegmatic prayer in Augustine's "Confessions," 
"Give what thou commandest, and command 
what thou wilt," was intolerable to Pelagius, as 
disparaging the independence and power of man. 
His objection to-the sentiment brought him into 
conflict with a bishop of Rome, as Augustine 
relates, in the midst of a service. His assertion 
of the freedom of man was against a lingering be- 
lief in fatalism — Gnostic and Manichaean. Justice 
has perhaps never been done the Pelagians in re- 
spect to the protest they made against the tenden- 
cies of their times that derogated from the dignity, 
the free agency, the Christian liberty, and God- 
likeness of man. The notion that man stood un- 
der a law whereby he sinned of necessity was very 
general. The result of such a view is to weaken, 
if not destroy, the sense of responsibility, and thus 
to remove the chief support to morality. Against 
this, the lessening of personal responsibility, was 



278 The Church of the Fathers. 

the very thing that Pelagius set himself vehement- 
ly. He affirmed the ability in man to keep the 
commandments laid upon him ; to suppose the con- 
trary was irrational and blasphemous. 

The literary activity of Pelagius began at Rome 
as early as the year 405 with an epistle to St. 
Paulinus. "In the three hundred lines of which 
it is composed," he wrote later in his own defense, 
"there is nothing else asserted but the grace and 
aid of God, and our own powerlessness to do any 
good whatsoever without God." At about the 
same time he composed his commentaries on the 
epistles of Paul, in which he opposed the doctrine 
of original sin as commonly taught. Cassiodorus 
subjected these commentaries to such an expurga- 
tion as to destroy their value as Pelagian docu- 
ments, while the extracts in Mercator are too scant 
to indicate much more than has been noted, 
namely, his denial (in commenting on Rom. v. 12) 
of original and inherited sin. 

Pelagius came to Rome from Britain before the 
year 384. His origin has been much discussed, 
but there is no good reason for rejecting this view. 
He is called the "British dragon" by Prosperus, 
and by Jerome "the dog of Albion, beastly fat- 
tened on Scottish pulse." His original name was 
Morgan (i.e., Marigena, ' ' seaman " ) , and for the 
sake of euphony was translated into the Greek, 
"Pelagius." As to physical appearance, he is 
characterized, by opponents, as obese and un- 
couth. Duplicity and cunning, according also to 



The Pelagian Controversy. 279 

them, were his mental characteristics. Augus- 
tine, however, is more just than the rest to his 
opponent's character. He had by nature, he 
says, a most keen, strong, and acute intellect. 
" These adversaries/' he further writes, "are 
not such as you may despise; but they live con- 
tinently, and are praiseworthy in good works." 
The only charge he has, at this time, to bring 
against them is that "they are ignorant of the 
justice of God and wish to establish their own." 
Wesley, with the broad-mindedness character- 
istic of him, writes: "I would not affirm that 
the arch-heretic of the fifth century, Pelagius, 
as plentifully as he has been bespattered for 
many ages, was not one of the holiest men of 
that age." 

Some years before this time (about A.D. 400), 
Coelestius had attached himself to Pelagius. 
Fleeing together from Rome before the invad- 
ing Goths, they betook themselves to Sicily, 
where they continued active in the dissemination 
of their doctrines. Their stay at Syracuse was 
some two or three years in duration. Here Pe- 
lagius probably wrote his book on "Nature," 
to which Augustine's on "Nature and Grace" 
is an answer. In the year 411 they proceeded 
to Hippo to visit Augustine ; but he was absent, 
and they went to Carthage without seeing him. 
After a brief stay here, Pelagius went to Pales- 
tine, while Coelestius remained at Carthage. This 
was in 412. 



280 The Church of the Fathers. 

3. Synods. 
Coelestius was brought before the annual synod 
of Carthage that year for trial. There were six 
charges preferred. He was accused of teaching 
that: 

1. Adam was created mortal, and would have 
died whether he had sinned or not. 

2. Adam's sin injured only himself, and not the 
human race. 

3. Newborn infants are in the same state Adam 
was before his transgression. 

4. Neither by Adam's death or transgression 
does all mankind die, nor by Christ's resurrection 
does all mankind rise. 

5. The law as well as the gospel conducts to the 
kingdom of heaven. 

6. There were even before the advent of our 
Lord sinless men. 

Unable to refute these charges, he was con- 
demned. It is said that he put forth these views 
in a work against original sin as early as 401 or 
402. His " Definitions of Sinlessness" was writ- 
ten about 408, to which Augustine's " Perfection 
of Justice " was a reply. The importance of the 
first-named work will justify a translation here of 
several articles of it. 

"First of all," he writes, " he who denies that 
man can be without sin must ask, ' What is the 
nature of sin? Is it something that can be 
avoided, or something that cannot be avoided?' 
If it cannot be avoided, it is not sin; if it can 



The Pelagian Controversy. 281 

be avoided, then man can be without sin, because 
it can be avoided. For neither reason nor justice 
indeed suffers that to be called sin which can by 
no means be avoided. 

"Again, it is to be asked, ' Whereby does a 
man come to have sin: by the necessity of nature 
or by freedom of will?' If by the necessity of 
nature, there is no blame; if by freedom of will, 
it is to be asked from whom he received this free- 
dom of will. Unquestionably, from God. But 
what God has given cannot certainly be denied to 
be good. But how can it be proved to be good if 
it is more prone to evil than to good? And it is 
more prone to evil than to good if by it a man can 
sin but cannot keep from sinning. 

"Again, it is to be asked, ' In how many ways 
can sin be committed?' In two, if I am not mis- 
taken — namely, either by doing what is prohibited, 
or by not doing what is commanded. Now, sure- 
ly all those things which are prohibited can be 
avoided, and those which have been commanded 
can be performed. 

"Again, it is to be asked, ' If the nature of man 
is good — a fact that no one except Marcion and 
Manich^us dare deny — how is it good if it cannot 
possibly be without evil? ' For who can doubt that 
every sin is evil? " 

We perceive that here is much quibbling, al- 



282 The Church of the leathers. 

though a neglected side of truth has been laid hold 
upon. We shall adjudge Pelagius not to be whol- 
ly destitute of merit. 

One of Jerome's assaults upon Coelestius about 
this time runs as follows: " One of his (Pelagius's) 
disciples, already forsooth a teacher, and leader of 
the whole army, and a vessel of perdition against 
the apostle, running his devious way through thick- 
ets of solecisms, and not, as his adherents boast, 
of syllogisms, thus philosophizes and argues: * If I 
can do nothing without God's aid, and if in every 
work all that I shall do is his, then it is not I who 
labor, but it is God's aid that shall be crowned in 
me ; and in vain has he given me freedom of will 
which I cannot exercise unless he himself shall al- 
ways aid me; for the power of willing is destroyed 
when it requires the help of another. But God 
has given a free will, which is not otherwise free 
than that I shall do what I shall will to do. In a 
word, then, either I use the power which has been 
given me, so that free will is preserved, or, if I re- 
quire the assistance of another, liberty of choice in 
me is destroyed.' " 

Having been won over to the cause, Coelestius 
had early become a more vigorous and conspicu- 
ous champion of it than his master. Mercator 
gives us what first-hand knowledge we have of 
him. " He was of noble birth," he writes, "and 
an advocate by profession. Taught by Pelagius, 
he imbibed that most impious doctrine in a more 
unadulterated form, and by an incredible loquaci- 



The Pelagian Controversy. 283 

ty won many adherents and confreres to this his 
madness." 

Pelagius was brought to trial before a synod at 
Jerusalem, A.D. 413. Bishop John presided ; Oro- 
sius, a presbyter of Spain, who was acquainted with 
the acts of the Carthaginian synod, prosecuted. 
Two false doctrines were produced as laid by 
Augustine to Pelagius's charge: "1. That a man 
can be without sin, if he wishes. 2. That he 
can easily keep God's commandments." Judg- 
ment was suspended, and the case was referred to 
Rome. Only silence, pending the decision of 
Pope Innocent, was enjoined upon Pelagius. 

The obnoxious doctrines were to be found in Pela- 
gius's book on " Nature," written in Sicily before 
411. The extracts given by Augustine in his re- 
ply are copious. There Pelagius had said: "I 
can say a man can be without sin. What sayest 
thou? 'A man cannot be without sin.' Neither 
do I say any man is without sin, nor dost thou say 
any man is not without sin : concerning the ability, 
not the fact, do we contend." But God's help is 
asserted as necessary, and it is by the reaffirma- 
tion of this at the synod of Jerusalem that he es- 
capes condemnation. 

4. Pelagius's Epistle to Demetrias. 

In this year (413) falls the most important Pe- 
lagian document, namely, the "Epistle to Deme- 
trias," written by Pelagius to a wealthy virgin who 
had assumed the veil. To this epistle, preserved 



284 The Church of the Fathers. 

in its entirety, the student must go who would un- 
derstand Pelagianism. It is Pelagianism in prac- 
tice — the spirit, method, philosophy, ethics, are 
all here. Quotations, however extended, must 
fail to do justice to the work. But Pelagius's 
general ideas may be presented. His ruling prin- 
ciple is given at the outset. "As often as I take 
in hand," he writes, "to speak of moral instruc- 
tion and the conduct of the holy life, I am accus- 
tomed first of all to set forth the quality and force 
of human nature and to demonstrate what it can 
accomplish." His intention is thereby to incite 
to virtue, to encourage those whom he addresses 
as a general does his soldiers. "For we are not 
able even so much as to enter upon a course of 
virtue unless hope be our companion and guide." 
It is necessary to show what the power of our na- 
ture is, since one might as well not have a thing 
as to be ignorant he has it. 

Chief emphasis is placed upon the fact that God 
made man good and gave him dominion over all 
other creatures. For, "whom he made defense- 
less externally he armed the better within ; that 
is, by prudence and reason, so that by the vigor 
of his intellect and soul he might be at the head 
of the animal creation and alone know the Crea- 
tor of all, and that he might serve God by those 
powers by which he rules other things ; whom the 
Lord, moreover, wished to be the voluntary doer 
of righteousness, not the forced. And so he left 
him in the hands of his own counsel, and set be- 



The Pelagian Controversy. 285 

fore him life and death, good and evil." An ob- 
jection to the doctrine of man's goodness by 
nature is answered: "And so you think man 
not created truly good because he can do evil, 
and is not by the force of nature bound to the 
necessity of immutable goodness. But, instead 
of derogating from human nature, if rightly un- 
derstood, "in this liberty in each direction is 
placed the honor of the rational soul." Only 
by having such double liberty could praise and 
reward be merited. "There w r ould be no virtue 
at all in the one who perseveres in goodness if we 
could not turn to evil. . . . The good Creator 
wished us to be capable of either, but to do one, 
namely, the good, which he also commanded; 
and he gave us the possibility of evil to this end 
alone, that we might reject it of our own choice. 
Since this is so, this also is good, that we are 
capable of doing evil. ... It is allowed us to 
choose, to reject, to approve, to condemn. . . . 
Some very unworthy men, neglecting to make 
the most of themselves, wish that they had been 
made different, so that they seem to wish to 
emend nature instead of their own lives. 
The goodness of nature is so universally implant- 
ed in all men that it manifests itself even in hea- 
thens who are without any worship of God." Phi- 
losophers afford illustrious examples of all kinds 
of virtue: "of how much more, then, are Chris- 
tians capable, whose nature and life have been 
built up and taught in a better way by Christ, 



286 The Church of the Fathers. 

and who are helped also by the aid of divine 
favor?" 

Again he says : " There is in our souls, as I might 
say, a certain natural piety. The good conscience 
itself bears witness to this goodness of nature. 
The law written in the hearts of men was the guide 
of all those who lived from Adam to Moses, of 
whom there were many righteous." Of Job he 
exclaims: "Evangelist before the evangel, and 
apostle before the apostolic teaching! who, open- 
ing up the hidden riches of nature and producing 
them to view, shows what we of ourselves are all 
capable of." 

The function and efficacy of the law and the 
force of habit are set forth. The argument here 
regarding the ability of nature is cumulative: 
" It is no slight argument for proving the goodness 
of human nature that those first men were with- 
out any admonition of the law during so many 
generations: not that there was ever a time when 
God had no care for his creature, but because he 
knew he had made the nature of man such that 
it was adequate in place of the law for the exer- 
cise of righteousness. Furthermore, while as yet 
youthful vigor belonged to nature, and long-con- 
tinued habit of sinning had not drawn, as it were, 
a veil over the human reason, nature was released 
from law. But when it became buried in excess- 
ive vices and was consumed by the rust, so to 
speak, of ignorance, the Lord gave the file of the 
law, so that, by the frequent rasping of this, na- 



The Pelagian Controversy. 287 

ture was cleansed and embellished and restored 
to its brightness. There is not, indeed, any other 
cause that makes it difficult for us to do well than 
the long custom of vices which has grown on us 
from infancy, and through many years has grad- 
ually corrupted us, and so holds us addicted and 
bound to itself that it seems to have in a measure 
the force of nature." 

This recognition of the part performed by habit 
in sinning is noteworthy. The opponents of Pela- 
gianism did not consider this recognition in their at- 
tacks upon the system. The difficulty of alteration 
was also clearly admitted, for old custom opposed 
the new desire. The cumulative argument contin- 
ues: " If even before the law, as we have said, and 
long before the coming of our Lord and Saviour, 
men are said to have lived righteously and holily, 
how much more after this glorious advent is it to 
be believed that we who have been edified by the 
grace of Christ, and have been born again to a 
better manhood ; who having our sins atoned for 
and cleansed by his blood, and being incited by 
his example to perfect righteousness, ought to be 
better than those who were before the law ; bettei 
also than were those under the law." 

The emphasis placed upon knowledge in Pela- 
gianism is indeed great, but not sufficiently exag- 
gerated to constitute heresy, " The first care of the 
virgin," says Pelagius, in the light of the forego- 
ing argument, " and her first endeavor, should be 
to know the will of her Lord, and diligently to in- 



288 The Church of the Fathers. 

quire what is pleasing, what is displeasing, to him, 
that according to the apostle he may render to 
God a 'reasonable service.' " 

As fear, in the ancient proverb, is made the be- 
ginning of wisdom, so knowledge is in this teach- 
ing made the beginning — only the beginning — of 
virtue. "To investigate what is taught is the first 
step of obedience, and it is a part of service to 
learn what you should do." This knowledge is 
primary and essential, in view of the nature of the 
divine precepts — t. e. 9 their diversity. "Know 
therefore that in the divine Scriptures, where alone 
you are able to discover the entire will of God, cer- 
tain things are prohibited, others are allowed, some 
are recommended. Evil deeds are prohibited, good 
are commanded, the indifferent are permitted, the 
perfect are recommended. In the two classes which 
stand first, all sin is included ; for in each is there 
contained a commandment of God. . . . But the 
two which follow . . . are put in our control, so 
that, with less honor, we may use what is conceded, 
or, for the sake of greater reward, we may reject 
even those things which are permitted us." 

We discover in this an idea that is analogous — 
this is perhaps all that can be said — to the theory 
of Monasticism, namely, that something over and 
above the absolute requirement of the Christian 
commandment is capable of being done. The re- 
sponsibility of the individual is correspondingly 
enhanced. The appeal, after certain stages, rests 
upon a different footing; virtue has other incentives, 



The Pelagian Controversy. 289 

The training of the will, by whose effort all is ac- 
complished, is more wisely provided for. The 
possibility of success is denied no one. " Every 
one, moreover," concludes Pelagius, "who seeks 
shall find; and whoever finds, let him not fear to 
be robbed; for those things alone are good which 
we never either find or lose except by choice." 

There is no inheritance of spiritual riches. " No 
one but thyself is able to confer spiritual riches 
upon thee." Otherwise where would the praise 
be? Yet the force of example and of parental 
character is acknowledged. To say we are not 
able to keep the commandments is to ascribe ini- 
quity and cruelty to God. Remembering our 
frames that they are dust, he has imposed no im- 
possible requirements. " God is made by some 
to seem rather to desire our condemnation than 
our salvation. He who is just has wished to com- 
mand nothing impossible. No; will he who is 
merciful condemn man on account of that which 
cannot be avoided?" This is the main conten- 
tion, the chief stay, of Pelagianism. 

The means of advancement recommended are 
reading, prayer, and loving works. The first two 
must bear fruit in the last: this is the end of all 
pious exercise. " It profits not at all to learn what 
should be done, and not to do it." The gracious 
interchange of reading, prayer, and holy work is 
the divine mode of bringing the soul to perfection. 
The temptation of the devil is to be taken into ac- 
count; but he does us no harm without the coop- 
l 9 



290 The Church of the Fathers. 

eration of our will. " ' With our own sword,' as 
the saying is, ' he cuts our throats.' " 

As regards moral progress, it is accomplished 
by effort, slowly and gradually. The mark of 
perfection is never to be thought of as attained: 
" By daily fresh increments of virtue the mind is 
to be built up ; this journey of our life is to be 
measured not by the distance we have traveled, 
but by the distance yet remaining. As long as we 
are in this body, never let us think we have ar- 
rived at perfection; for thus something better is 
attained. . . . Not to advance is immediately to 
fallback/' 

Such is the character of this most beautiful and 
most instructive of the Pelagian writings. Even 
Jerome is forced to praise its grace and finish. 

5. Doctrines. 

The test question perhaps is, How does Pelagi- 
us think of the grace of God^ seeing he admits it? 
This review will acquaint us with Augustinianism. 
By Augustine in his "Epistle to Paulinus" (A.D. 
405) he is quoted as saying he "sought not to be 
thought to defend free will without the grace of 
God, since the possibility of willing and doing, 
without which we can will and do nothing good, is 
implanted in us by the Creator." This is a lim- 
itation upon the grace of God intolerable to the 
Augustinian party, which required its action in 
every single move. The operation of grace ac- 
cording to Pelagius was like the working of gen- 



The Pelagian Controversy. 291 

eral law. It was a question in Augustine's mind 
as late as the year 417 just how far the working 
of grace in the conception of Pelagius extended. 
" Whether he makes grace to consist in the remis- 
sion of sins, or also in the doctrine and example 
of Christ, or believes there is some aid to well- 
doing added to nature and doctrine by the inspira- 
tion of a burning and shining love, not at all ap- 
pears." 

Indisputably we have repeated assertions by 
Pelagius of the need of divine help and grace 
throughout life. In his injunctions he emphasizes 
the value of prayer. If there is an apparent want 
of importance attached thereto, it is only in mak- 
ing works the end and in exalting the active life 
of service. Again, in his treatise on "Nature," 
Pelagius had written: "A man cannot indeed get 
rid of the sins he has already committed. But 
they are to be expiated, and the Lord is to be 
prayed to on their account. I willingly concede 
that what is done the power of nature and the will 
of man are not able to undo." 

The nature of sin is another question of prime 
importance. In the treatise on "Nature" he 
wrote: "We have first of all to discuss whether, 
as it is said, nature is weakened and changed by 
sin. ' ' It is manifest that the discussion of this ques- 
tion is preliminary to any assertion of the present 
capacity of nature as deduced from its original en- 
dowment. If our nature has been so weakened 
and changed, then all any one might say about the 



292 The Church of the Fathers. 

primitive goodness of nature would go for naught. 
Pelagius argues against such a general charge. 
And he arrives at such conclusion first by an in- 
quiry into the nature of sin. " Before all things, 
I think we are to ask, What is sin? Is it a sub- 
stance, or a mere name wanting substance, whereby 
is expressed not a thing or existence, but the doing 
of an evil deed? I believe it is so; and if it is so, 
how can it weaken or change human nature, want- 
ing, as it does, substance ? " Without this concep- 
tion of sin he could not hold the view of freedom 
which he does. 

The clearness, consistency, and steadfastness of 
the Pelagian view of sin afforded a conspicuous 
contrast to the fluctuating view of Augustine. The 
entire Pelagian system may be said to rest upon 
this definition. It renders the inheritance of sin 
impossible: sin is not a thing, it cannot therefore 
be inherited. That is, "original sin " is a figment. 
And, as sin cannot be transmitted, it does not be- 
long to newborn children. The arguments of the 
Pelagians against original sin may be summarized 
as follows: Original sin is impossible, (1) because 
God the Creator of men is a good God — his good- 
ness is a guarantee against the creation of man an 
evil being, which original sin means; (2) because 
it contradicts the idea of sin ; (3) because it is op- 
posed to the Holy Scripture. 

The baptism of infants was a matter that came 
to the fore in many of the councils. In the first 
council of all, that of Carthage, Coelestius was 



The Pelagian Controversy. 293 

charged with heresy on this point. Of course the 
Pelagians, denying hereditary sin, could not hold 
the Catholic view of infant baptism. While not 
giving up the practice, they put a new and strange 
interpretation upon it. It might well be asked, by 
the opponents of Pelagianism, why children were 
vbaptized at all. Na}^, they go further, and de- 
mand a reason for any baptism whatever. 

In Pelagius's " Confession of Faith" he says: 
" We hold one baptism, which we administer to in- 
fants in the same sacramental words as to adults." 
Coelestius, whose " Confession of Faith" is almost 
throughout identical with that of Pelagius, here 
makes a considerable addition. "Infants," he 
says, " are to be baptized for the remission of sins, 
according to the rule of the universal Church, . . . 
because the Lord has decreed that the kingdom of 
heaven can be bestowed only upon the baptized." 
Julian, one of the ablest of the Pelagians, said: 
"Infants by baptism are made better from a state 
of goodness, not good from a state of evil." And 
again, in his " Confession of Faith " : "According 
to the example of the Church and the commandment 
of God, we affirm one baptism, which is truly neces- 
sary to persons of all ages; . . . and we say no- 
body can find pardon of sins and obtain the king- 
dom of heaven unless he has been baptized." 
That " infants are baptized not for the remission 
of sins, but for the kingdom of heaven," amount- 
ed to a watchword among the rest of the Pela- 
gians. "If they die unbaptized," said Pelagius, 



294 The Church of the Fathers. 

"I know where they do not go, but I know not 
where they do go." Augustine, on the contrary, 
unflinchingly asserted that they went into eternal 
torment. He denied any middle place: the doc- 
trine of the limbus infantium had not yet found 
its way into the Church. Julian represents, on 
the other hand, the extreme opposition. With 
him there was no distinction between the " king- 
dom of heaven" and " eternal life," such as Pe- 
lagius made. 

The Pelagians were the rationalists of their age. 
Their doctrine of grace, of prayer, of baptism, 
their anthropology, their scriptural exegesis, their 
ethics, were rationalistic. Deism and naturalism 
are not far removed from rationalism, and there 
are not wanting those to interpret Pelagianism as 
being such a system. But Pelagianism was far 
from simple deism ; yet naturalistic it surely was. 
Its influence in this regard has not yet been traced, 
but it seems probable that in semi-Pelagianism an 
attitude of mind and a way of thinking were trans- 
mitted from Pelagius to modern times. "Natural 
supernaturalism " was his primary conception. 

In Julian, perhaps, Pelagianism finds its most 
developed expression. Born in Apuleia, of par- 
ents celebrated for piety and good works — his fa- 
ther was a bishop, his mother an "excellent wom- 
an," as Mercator says, who adds that "before he 
took up with the Pelagian impiety he was famous 
among the doctors of the Church." Keen in in- 
tellect, he gave in youth the most diligent heed to 



The Pelagian Controversy. 295 

secular, then to sacred, letters. By nature he was 
gifted with great eloquence. When elevated to 
the bishopric of Eclanum, in 416, he was still con- 
stant in the profession of the Catholic faith. Yet 
prior to this he had translated the " Confession of 
Faith" of Rufinus from the original Greek into 
Latin — an indication of the Pelagian trend of his 
thought. His epistle to Pope Zosimus, in 417, con- 
tains almost all the heretical doctrines which had 
been condemned in Coelestius. His own " Confes- 
sion " dates in this year. It was sent in the name 
of eighteen bishops to Pope Zosimus. Pelagian- 
ism assumes the aggressive attitude in this pronun- 
ciamento more than elsewhere. Parts one and two 
contain the usual Pelagian formulae about the un- 
naturalness of sin, the goodness and integrity of 
human nature, the ability of man on account of the 
righteousness of God to fulfill the commandments 
of the divine law " by the grace of Christ and by 
the free will of man " ; this grace being a compan- 
ion and aid in all good acts, and the free will itself 
a gift of God. But other doctrines are more dis- 
tinctly taught than in the earlier "Confessions," 
namely: that every man is the special creation 
of God; marriage was ordained by God, and is 
good; and therefore that, because of the good- 
ness of nature and this blessing upon marriage 
and the honor of the relation, there is no original 
sin. 

Julian charged Augustine with sharing in the 
error of Jovinian because he had written, "A man 



296 The Church of the Fathers. 

cannot wish anything good unless he is aided by 
Him who can wish nothing evil." But the charge 
of Manichasism was the one most commonly made 
by the Pelagians against their opponents. The de- 
fenders of original sin — i. e., the Augustinians — 
are accused of teaching, ( 1 ) that marriage is of 
the devil; (2) that the children thereof are fruits 
of a diabolical tree; (3) that all men, up to the 
time of the passion of Christ, belong to the devil 
because they were conceived in sin ; (4) that the 
Son of God began to benefit the human race only 
from the time of his passion ; ( 5 ) that sins are not 
entirely destroyed by baptism; (6) that the saints 
of the Old Testament departed this life with sin ; 
(7) that a man falls of necessity into sin; (8) that 
the Saviour, by necessity of the flesh, deceived; 
( 9 ) that, on account of the impediment of the flesh, 
he was not able to do all he wished. 

This is what Pelagianism felt itself called upon to 
oppose. Julian proceeds to make clearer its posi- 
tion by condemning the doctrines which were com- 
monly attributed to his sect: *'We condemn those 
who say sins cannot be avoided by the grace of 
God. But also whoever says men can avoid sins 
without the grace or help of God, we severely de- 
test; whoever denies that infants require baptism, 
or holds that it should be administered to them in 
other sacramental words than to adults ; whoever 
also says that the offspring of two baptized per- 
sons, or of a baptized mother, does not need the 
grace of baptism; or whoever asserts that all man- 



The Pelagian Controversy. 297 

kind neither dies in Adam nor rises in Christ, we 
condemn." 

Julian's ethical principle is put in one clear sen- 
tence, often repeated : ' ' By the decision of the free 
will we can do the good we wish to do, yet by the 
aid of divine grace we can do it more easily." 

What from this review are we enabled to con- 
clude regarding Pelagianism ? It is a system of doc- 
trine; this is the first thing to be noted. Any one 
of several doctrines might easily be the starting 
point, and the other doctrines would follow in con- 
sistent development. Logically, the goodness of 
God seems to be the first, though chronologically 
the goodness of his work— that is, the goodness of 
human nature — may have been first in the mind. 
Pelagius's repugnance to the favorite dictum of Au- 
gustine, "Give what thou commandest, and com- 
mand what thou wilt," reveals that the core of the 
controversy was the relation between God and man, 
Pelagius thinking this view to be derogatory to 
God and dishonoring to man — as taking away the 
lofty, impartial character of the one and the inde- 
pendence of the other. The: freedom and ability 
to choose and act in a good or evil way was an 
essential element of human nature created good. 
Nothing, neither the sin of Adam nor of the indi- 
vidual, had ever destroyed this property. Man 
was created good, he was still essentially good, 
and free, and able to keep all God's command- 
ments. God is the author of both, and made them 
commensurate each with each. The wisdom and 



298 The Church of the Fathers. 

goodness of God require this to be so. Let no 
man, therefore — ran its argument — despair of 
pleasing God and reaping a reward, even eternal 
life, offered to all. 

Pelagianism doubtless arose and developed in op- 
position to gnostic and pagan notions of fatalism, 
and the kindred Manichaean principle of dualism. 
It revolted against such a conception of the uni- 
verse. Such a conception was not Christian, but 
pagan; furthermore, it was discouraging and pes- 
simistic, being a reversion to ante-Christian de- 
spondency and darkness. All the Augustinians 
had to say regarding the destiny of men was that 
its decision lay in the hands of God as an inscru- 
table mystery. Doubtless Pelagianism underesti- 
mated the force of heredity, and failed to compre- 
hend the human race as a unity. This, however, 
was certainly owing to the exigencies of the con- 
troversy. The Augustinians, in their over-empha- 
sis of these ideas, failed to render due credit to the 
force and independent activity of the individual. 

The question of the nature of sin is closely re- 
lated to this. Augustine, in the controversy, de- 
parted from his early conception of sin, and defines 
it as an entity, a real, positive substance. It was 
of such a nature that it could be transmitted, and 
could act as a force inherent in a thing. Matter 
was inherently evil; that is, human nature, as con- 
sisting of flesh, or matter, in part, had evil inerad- 
icably inherent within it. To the Pelagians this 
was Manichaean blasphemy. Sin was the doing 



The Pelagian Controversy. 299 

of a wrongful deed, according to Pelagius. With 
the deed it ended, except that the deed, repeated, 
contributed to the formation of a habit, and the 
force of habit was not overlooked. 

Following the Aristotelian dialectic, Pelagian- 
ism appears confident, self-reliant, and, to its oppo- 
nents, arrogant; yet it doubtless supplied in its con- 
fident, encouragingtone the support needed by that 
despairing age. For it was an age of great and 
inexplicable disasters. Such doctrine of the abil- 
ity of human nature to rise, to perform God's 
will, to triumph, would act as a tonic to an age sick 
in all it members, overwhelmed by calamities, and 
losing sight of the good cheer, the same confident, 
inspiring message of early Christianity. 

The adherents of Pelagianism multiplied rapid- 
ly. In several countries they soon became all but 
predominant. In Sicily, in Italy, in Palestine, in 
Britain, the Pelagians were alarmingly numerous. 
Gamier enumerates no fewer than twenty-two syn- 
ods that were held before the death of Augustine 
to deal with the heresy. In Africa Augustine had 
sufficient force to hold it in check there. 

The absorbing and almost sole aim of Pelagian- 
ism was practical and ethical. In its "Confessions 
of Faith " no heresy on speculative matters uncon- 
nected with sin and grace — that is, in regard to the 
Christological and Trinitarian questions — can be 
found. It may be safely said that a century ear- 
lier Pelagianism would have been unchallenged. 
It came when it was needed. It resisted tenden- 



306 The Church of the Fathers. 

cies too strong to be overcome, yet it half con- 
quered in every defeat. Augustinianism, in the 
form in which it then made its fight, as regards 
its definition of sin, its doctrine of predestination, 
its principle of dualism and the inherent evil of 
matter, is as foreign as Gnosticism to the mind of 
this generation. The greater piety and the more 
commanding faith were on the side of Augustine. 
The quality of reasonableness, of sanity, of hu- 
mane Christlikeness was on the side of Pelagian- 
ism; and as it was subsequently developed, and 
was modified by Arminius,it has largely triumphed 
in the thought of the present day. "The false- 
hood of extremes" belonged to both parties; the 
body of truth, which is whole, symmetrical, and 
beautiful to the mind, was torn asunder, and each 
party with a distorted fragment claimed the perfect 
body. The modern mind is neither Augustinian 
nor Pelagian r it is Christian. 



COUNCILS AND CREEDS. 



"Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and 
knowledge thrive by exercise as well as our limbs and com- 
plexion. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fount- 
ain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they 
sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man 
may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only be- 
cause his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, with- 
out knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the 
very truth he holds becomes his heresy. There is not any bur- 
den that some would gladlier post off to another than the charge 
and care of their religion 

"I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a 
slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet 
haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing 
of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in 
fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and 
our backwardness to recover, any enthralled piece of truth out 
of the grip of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from 
truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do 
not see that while we still affect by all means a rigid external 
formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming 
stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of * wood and hay and 
stubble' forced and frozen together, which is more to the sud- 
den degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of 
petty schisms- . , , . 

" If it come to prohibiting, there is not aught more likely to be 
prohibited than truth itself; whose first appearance to our eyes, 
bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more un- 
sightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person 
is of many a great man slight and contemptible." — Milton* 

(3° 2 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 

COUNCILS AND CREEDS. 

" Ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus 
creditum est." — Vincentius (c. 434). 

" The Catholic faith — that which the Lord gave, the apostles 
preached, and the Fathers preserved." — Athanasius. 

" Nothing great can be done without passion." — Hegel. 

"Religion flourishes best in the atmosphere of freedom, anc* 
need not fear error as long as truth is left free to combat iL" — 
Dr. Schaff. 

He is no true historian who chooses for a motto, 
Nihil nisi bonum. The faithful historian must 
present all the aspects of his subject; he must de- 
scribe events as they occurred ; he must represent 
persons in their true character, whether to their 
glory or their shame; he must set down facts as 
they are, for credit or for discredit; in a word, he 
must put all things fully before the reader in a 
true light, His business is the relation, not the 
revision, of what has been said and done in the 
world. As the Methodist Discipline requires the 
novice to say he will keep the rules, not mend 
them, so Clio exacts the vow of her devotee that 
he will write history, not make it. 

The Church is a corporation of men and women, 
not all saints; and if they were saints, yet saints 
are not angels. The imperfections that belong to 
human creatures may therefore be expected to be- 
long to it, There will be found in its sacred pre-. 

(303) 



304 The Church of the Fathers. 

cincts not only aspirations after heaven, but aspi- 
rations after other "high places" as well; and 
Satan and his host will often, in the blindness of 
zeal not according to knowledge, be identified, 
mutually, with the contending ecclesiastical par- 
ties. The reciprocation of compliments will not 
always be in court fashion. 

In considering all this, the purpose of the Church 
must not be lost sight of. The Church was not in- 
stituted on earth because any class was perfect: 
heaven is the home of the perfect, not earth. The 
Church arose out of human needs of divine and 
human help. It is for the assistance of imperfect 
earthly beings. Its work is the strengthening of 
the weak, the encouraging of the despondent, the 
comforting of the sorrowful, the educating of all 
in divine things, the edifying of all in holiness of 
character, till all shall be brought unto the fullness 
of the measure of the stature of the perfect man in 
Christ. 

The history of the Church, like the history of 
every other institution, has its lights and shades, 
its graces and disgraces. If a pretended historian 
appear in the role of a colorist, and paints wholly 
with sky-blue and the roseate hues of dawn, there 
will not be wanting on the other side colorists also 
who will make the canvas lurid, in true Rembrandt 
style, with mingled hues of smoke and flame, as if 
from the brimstone pit itself. 

Least of all should the Christian historian try to 
cover up any ugly blemish. Honesty requires him 



Councils and Creeds. 305 

to say, like Cromwell, "wart or nothing." At- 
tempts at concealing, disguising, explaining away, 
will make him to appear in the role of a partisan ; 
and against him, forthwith, will rise up advocates 
with briefs for the other side, who feel it their 
bounden duty to make out the strongest case of 
impeachment possible. 

Confidence in his cause when fairly presented, 
with all detractions required by certain facts; con- 
fidence in the eternal foundation of the Church 
upon the rock of righteousness; confidence in 
truth, for which the Church stands, as alone able 
to make free and to bring forth all good, while 
error only is harmful, and always so; confidence 
in God, ought to compel the historian to copy the 
story as God first wrote it in the lives of men. 

We are now about to enter upon the sketching 
of the darkest pictures the history of the Church 
presents: its deeds of intolerance. Zeal for what 
they, rightly or wrongly, deemed essential beliefs, 
and the ineradicable passions of the human heart, 
must stand for explanation. 

1. Ecumenical Councils. 

Together with the settlement of a canon of Scrip- 
ture proceeded the difficult task of determining the 
rule of faith. Naturally, the agreement upon a 
canon is only provisional to the formation of a 
creed. The question of the former would never 
have arisen if the question of the latter had not 
first arisen. It was evident that to be valid a doc- 
20 



306 The Church of the Fathers. 

trine, tenet, or article of belief must be held, if 
held at all, upon a basis generally accepted. This 
was provided for in the collection of books agreed 
upon as sacred and as finally authoritative. 

The first centuries, even as these later times, 
were crowded with controversies. Heresies and 
sects sprang up like tares in wheat, and the zeal- 
ous stewards of the faith wished to pluck them out, 
root and branch. Councils were frequent, dis- 
putes were bitter; there was much at stake — the 
salvation of the world, and the positions and lives 
of the disputants. 

This chapter will be devoted to a brief account 
of the main controversies, the Ecumenical Coun- 
cils, and the outcome of all in the shape of creeds. 

In the book of Acts we have an account of the 
first Church council. It grew out of a lively and 
extremely important controversy between two 
Christian parties, and was held at the mother 
Church in Jerusalem, about A.D. 50. It was the 
mother of Church councils. But only because of 
its primacy of time is it here spoken of; it has no 
place in the list of Ecumenical Councils. Of coun- 
cils in general it should be remarked that there 
were several grades, with reference to the extent 
of their jurisdiction. The parochial, or diocesan, 
was lowest in rank. It was presided over by a 
bishop, and was composed of the clergy of his di- 
ocese. The provincial was the next higher in 
rank. It was presided over by the metropolitan, 
or archbishop, and was composed of the bishops 



Councils and Creeds. 307 

of his province. The patriarchal was similar to 
the provincial, being presided over by the patri- 
arch, or archbishop, of one of the Eastern capi- 
tals. Other kinds are defined by different writers ; 
but the truth is that there was no system or regu- 
lar gradation. 

As important as were oftentimes the acts of these 
lower councils, or synods, we shall confine our at- 
tention solely to the class known as Ecumenical — 
that is, general, or universal, beginning in the 
fourth century. The first five of these, and the 
most important, fall within our period, and are as 
follows: (1) the first Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325 ; 

(2) the first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381 ; 

(3) the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; (4) the 
Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; (5) the second 
Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553. 

As will be seen from the dates and designa- 
tions, there was no regularity of meeting, either in 
respect to time or place. They were summoned 
only when required for the settlement of some 
general controversy. There was also no pre- 
scribed rule of representation. The reigning em- 
peror, by the advice of chosen bishops, who hap- 
pened at the time to enjoy his favor, sent forth in- 
vitations to whomsoever he would have attend the 
proposed council. A further political character 
was given the councils by the fact that the emper- 
or, as head at once of State and Church, presided, 
either in person or by proxy, over them. Still 
more, he ratified their proceedings, and so gave 



308 The Church of the Fathers. 

them a civil character and the authority of impe- 
rial decrees. 

An exclusively hierarchical character was given 
the councils by the fact that no grade of clergy 
lower than bishops was admitted to membership. 
While deacons and presbyters might attend with 
their bishops, they had no part in the proceedings, 
except by special privilege. As regards the num- 
ber and territorial distribution of members there 
was also no regulation. In the First Ecumenical 
Council there were three hundred and eighteen 
bishops ; all but seven of them were from the East, 
although at the time there were, it is estimated, only 
one thousand bishops in the Eastern Church, while 
there were eight thousand in the Western. In the 
Second Council there were only one hundred and 
fifty bishops, and all were from the East. In the 
Third Council there were one hundred and sixty, 
or, as some give it, one hundred and ninety, bish- 
ops, all from the East; and in the Fourth Coun- 
cil there were, out of five hundred and twenty del- 
egates, only three from Rome and two, by chance, 
from Africa. The fact that the proceedings of 
these so-called Ecumenical Councils were subse- 
quently accepted by the Catholic Church alone 
renders the title justifiable. Not one was in any 
true sense ecumenical. 

The authority of these councils covered two do- 
mains: Discipline and Faith. Their rulings con- 
cerning matters of discipline required the votes 
of a majority, and were called canons. A rul- 



Councils and Creeds. 309 

ing on a matter of faith required unanimity, and 
was called a doctrinal decree, or dogma. Their 
function, in other words, was twofold — legisla- 
tive and judicial; in both they were supreme and 
final. From the first the attribute of infallibility 
was ascribed to their acts, and their commands 
were spoken of by themselves as "divine." The 
formula, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and 
to us/' 1 was used to introduce the minutes of their 
proceedings. 

The separate occasion, work, and significance 
of each Ecumenical Council must now be dis- 
cussed. This chapter may not be the most pleas- 
ing, it is yet not the least important, in all the his- 
tory of the Church. 

1. As the Council of Nicasa (A.D. 325) was 
fully described under the account of the Arian dis- 
pute, which it was summoned to decide, it can 
here be passed over. It is called, by preeminence, 
' ' the great and holy council. ' ' Athanasius said of 
it: " What God has spoken by the Council of Ni- 
casa abides forever." His words seem true. 

Arianism, however, was not to be so easily put 
down; error crushed to the earth will often rise 
again. Besides, Arianism was not unmitigated 
error. That infinite chasm between God and 
man was its fatal mistake ; it was this chasm that 
swallowed it up — not, however, till it rose again 
after the council that anathematized it. The law 

1 "Edot-e yap rJ f Ayiv HvEv/uari kcu q/iiv. (Acts xv. 2^.) 



310 The Church of the Fathers. 

of reaction operates in the realm of mind as in the 
realm of matter. There was a reaction in favor 
of Arianism which placed it in complete ascenden- 
cy. The imperial throne itself was occupied by a 
series of Arians. But the heretical party came to be 
rent by internal factions, and., being unable to unite, 
went the way of every house divided against itself. 

When in this era Julian "the Apostate " came to 
the throne, his policy was to tolerate all Christian 
parties, seeing they threatened to destroy one an- 
other. It was an age full of strife. 

2. But now an orthodox emperor is on the 
throne — Theodosius the Great. He is a Nicene 
Christian, having been educated in that faith. 
He straightway (A.D. 380) issues an edict requir- 
ing all his subjects to confess the same faith, and 
threatening punishment to all who refuse. This 
is imperial compulsion to uniformity of thinking. 
After their forty years' supremacy, the Arians are 
all expelled from the capital, and a council is 
called to assemble in Constantinople, to put its 
seal upon the victory of orthodoxy, and to deal 
with a new heresy. This was the origin of the 
Second Ecumenical Council, A.D. 387. One 
hundred and eighty-six bishops assemble, person- 
ally invited by the emperor; of course they are 
mostly Nicenes. The thirty-six semi-Arians do 
not see fit to remain, and the " orthodox" party 
has complete sway. It is constituted entirely of 
Orientals; the Latin Church is not represented. 
Still it is listed as an "Ecumenical" Council. 



Councils and Creeds. 311 

The matter before it was second in importance 
only to that determined by the Council of Nicasa 
fifty years before. That council determined the 
orthodox doctrine of the Son, establishing the 
fact of his deity; this determined the orthodox 
doctrine of the Holy Ghost, establishing his deity. 
And the article embodying this tenet was added 
to the Nicene Creed. In a series of eight canons 
seven heresies were condemned, chief of which 
was the heresy of Macedonius concerning the 
Holy Spirit — a heresy that repeated Arianism, only 
that it pertained to the Third Person of the Trin- 
ity instead of the Second. 

The emperor then enacted a law that all the 
churches should be given up to the subcribers of 
this confession. This was the munificent reward 
of orthodoxy. The public worship of heretics 
was forbidden. These were fruits of the union 
of Church and State. 

Arianism therefore was stamped out by the tread, 
as it were, of the imperial army; not everywhere, 
however, as yet. Many of the barbarian tribes 
were converted to Christianity when this type of 
doctrine prevailed, and therefore they were Arian 
Christians. The Goths, Suevi, Vandals, Burgun- 
dians, and Lombards did not exchange the faith 
delivered unto them in the beginning until the last 
half of the sixth century, and then on the field of 
defeat in arms. 

3. But no council, parliament, or parley of arms 
ever fixed the bounds of thought; and as long as 



312 The Church of the Fathers. 

there is thinking there will be heresy. Apollina- 
rianism is the name of the next to arise. Apol- 
linaris, bishop of Laodicea, in his zeal for the Ni- 
cene tenet of the deity of Christ, went so far as to 
deny the completeness of his humanity ; avoiding 
Scylla too far, he fell into Charybdis. To Christ 
he allowed a human body and human soul, but not 
a human spirit; this last was divine. Hence "he 
made Christ a middle being between God and man, 
in whom, as it were, one part divine and two parts 
human were fused in the unity of a new nature." 
This was a speculative, but not soundly psycholog- 
ical, age. This error was condemned by the Coun- 
cil of Constantinople, but not suppressed. The 
problem of the twofold nature of the Son, or of 
the relation between the human and the divine in 
Christ, was only now raised, not settled. The 
Council of Nicaea had granted him these two na- 
tures, and left their relation undetermined. Every 
problem of thought once solved becomes the basis 
of another unsolved. And thus the world moves 
on; thus the building is reared, block by block. 

Furthermore, they reasoned that, since Christ 
is God and was born of Mary, then Mary is the 
mother of God. It is inevitable that this title 
should in time be bestowed upon the honored Vir- 
gin. Where should this occur but in Ephesus, 
where they were in the habit of worshiping the 
chaste Diana, divine giver of light and life? It 
was here the worship of the virgin Mother of the 
true Light arose. 



Councils and Creeds. 313 

It was quite as inevitable that some persons 
would object to the title "Mother of God" be- 
ing applied to Mary. The trend of thought had 
reached its reductio ad absurdum. Nestorius, pa- 
triarch of Constantinople after A. D. 428, a zealot 
for orthodoxy, and a fierce persecutor of heretics, 
protested against such blasphemy. He would sub- 
stitute the title "Mother of Christ." The contro- 
versy spread and raged. Hence the Council of 
Ephesus was called, A.D. 431. The disputants 
came to the council as if to a field of battle. They 
were attended by armed escorts and a motley 
retinue of monks, slaves, seamen, and rabble- 
rout. In moral character this council sinks low- 
est of all the Ecumenical Councils. Gregory Na- 
zianzen, who, as archbishop of Constantinople, 
presided over the earlier sessions of the Ecumeni- 
cal Council there in 381, declared it to be an as- 
sembly of cranes and geese. This would have 
seemed to him an assembly of wolves. Its pro- 
cedure must not be described. Religious zeal 
calls forth the deepest passions of the soul, and 
sometimes they are transformed into the flames of 
the pit. Nestorius in the end was fiercely anathe- 
matized. 

The spirit of the age — intolerant, fanatical, in- 
human — is displayed in the traditions of the end 
of Nestorius. After his tongue was gnawed out 
by worms for its blasphemous utterances, so the 
story runs, he went to the torments of the fire 
which is never quenched. Even yet from year to 



314 The Church of the Fathers. 

year a fanatical sect in Egypt cast stones upon his 
grave, whereon, they say, the rain of heaven, so 
impartial commonly to the evil and the good, never 
falls — making an exception against Nestorius. Yet 
all historians agree that he was upright and honor- 
able in his life. His only fault was calling Mary 
the "Mother of Christ," instead of "Mother of 
God." 

The sect of Nestorians continues to this day. 
Upon the coast of Malabar, a colony of seventy 
thousand persons calling themselves "Thomas 
Christians," believing they received the gospel 
from St. Thomas, preserve the traditions of Nesto- 
rius. The influence of the Nestorians in the East 
has been very great. Doubtless Mohammed ob- 
tained from them his knowledge of Christianity, 
and, in consequence, he always favored and pro- 
tected them. 

4. One controversy follows another. Heresy is 
hydra-headed — cut off one, and a hundred hiss in 
its stead. 

The question of the two natures in the God- 
man developed into the Eutychian controversy. 
We have seen one extreme of the development of Ni- 
cene Christology in which the doctrine of two per- 
sonalities in Christ was arrived at. This is called 
Dyophysitism . The center of this development was 
Antioch, and its extreme manifestation was Nesto- 
rianism. We shall now see the other extreme of the 
Nicene doctrine of Christ developing into the op- 
posite error in which the human nature of the Son is 



Councils and Creeds. 315 

absorbed into the divine : hence this is called Mono- 
physitism. The seat of this school of Christology 
was Alexandria, and Eutyches was its chief repre- 
sentative. According to his view, there was but 
one nature — the divine — in Christ after the incar- 
nation; and therefore " God was born," "God 
suffered," "God was crucified," and "God 
died." Councils were held: one at Constantino- 
ple, which decided for two natures; one at Ephe- 
sus, which reversed this decision, declaring for 
Monophysitism. 

Pope Leo, protesting against a council that had 
been held at Ephesus in regard to the controversy, 
which council he terms a " Robber Synod," urges 
the calling of another Ecumenical Council. His 
choice of place is orthodox Italy, but Attila's rav- 
ages make this impracticable. The Emperor Mar- 
cian decides upon Nicaea, hoping the memory of the 
first and noblest of the councils will tend to make the 
bishops mindful of their dignity. Therefore at 
Nicaea, in the year 451, bishops to the number of 
five hundred and twenty (or six hundred and 
thirty) assemble. But such a turbulent spirit 
forthwith breaks out that they are summoned to 
Chalcedon, just across the Hellespont from Con- 
stantinople, that the imperial court and senate may 
awe them into moderation. The attempt was made 
on both sides, it seems, to carry the day by ex- 
clamations, shouts, and denunciations, rather than 
by arguments. 

On the reading of the Nicene-Constantinopoli- 



316 The Church of the Fathers. 

tan Creed, the bishops shouted, in the midst of 
many other things, "This is the faith of the fa- 
thers ! . . . Anathema to him who believes other- 
wise ! " Dyophysitism — that is, the doctrine of 
two natures in one person in inseparable union — 
won the day. The council concluded with the 
adoption of the traditional symbol, or creed, above 
named, to which it added a number of articles more 
explicitly defining its doctrine of the two natures. 

The Eutychians, or Monophysites, were ban- 
ished and their writings were burned. Monks en- 
gaged in bloody fights, and the rabble joined in. 
This w r as the last of the councils that dealt with a 
problem of supreme importance. It completed the 
orthodox doctrine of Christ. 

The Monophysite controversy continued with 
great agitation to the whole Church and the empire. 
Justinian endeavored by all means in his power to 
effect a reconciliation of the parties, but without suc- 
cess. An edict known as the " Henoticon," issued 
by Zeno in 482, had failed to bring about a com- 
promise and union ; now another imperial edict in 
544, designed by Justinian to the same end, proved 
equally futile. This edict, known as the "Edict 
of the Three Chapters," condemning three Nesto- 
rian treatises, was confirmed by the Ecumenical 
Council which Justinian summoned in 553 to meet 
in Constantinople. By the Dyophysitic decisions 
of this council many schisms were caused, inas- 
much as all who were of a contrary opinion were 
ejected from the Catholic Church. 



Councils and Creeds. 317 

One may regret to record or to read the un- 
pleasant facts of these years of "theological mad- 
ness." Doubtless a deep concern for supreme 
matters of speculation was often degraded by a 
zeal not according either to knowledge or to char- 
ity. One laments to see orthodoxy, " right opin- 
ion,' ' becoming all-important and the manner of 
life disregarded. Dioscorus, archbishop of Alex- 
andria, who presided at the "Robber Synod" of 
Ephesus, in 449, surrounded by armed soldiers, 
dismissed the gravest charges of immorality, in- 
cluding unchastity, against a bishop, with this re- 
mark: " If you have an accusation against his or- 
thodoxy, we will receive it; but we have not come 
together to pass jugment concerning unchastity." 

Purity of faith, so called, has become of such 
extreme importance that purity of life is not even 
thought of. A synod held at Illyricum, in 373, or 
thereabout, showed in one of its utterances the 
trend of thought: "For them that preach that the 
Trinity is of one substance, the kingdom of heaven 
is prepared." Right ideas about the relation sub- 
sisting between the two natures of the Son are more 
important than in right relations with one's fellow- 
men. Immorality is not to be considered when a 
metaphysical hair is to split. All this reveals how 
far the Church has departed from the pure, enno- 
bling thought of Clement of Alexandria: "The 
sacrifice of the Church is the Word breathing as 
incense from holy souls. The righteous soul is the 
truly sacred altar, and incense arising from it is 



318 The Church of the Fathers. 

holy prayer." And how far it has forgotten the 
sweet words of the Lord: "Come unto me, all ye 
that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest." 

2. Creeds. 

The Ecumenical Councils defined the moral reg- 
ulations of the clergy in brief rules known as can- 
ons. In concise and carefully worked formulas 
they also prescribed the beliefs which should be 
held by all bishops who were to be accounted 
catholic and orthodox. These were called "sym- 
bols of faith," or creeds. 

The Creed of Nicaea has already been presented 
in connection with the Arian controversy, out of 
which it grew. It needs here only to be added 
that the Second Ecumenical Council, that of Con- 
stantinople, reaffirmed this without any alteration; 
but, in addition to this Nicene formula, framed, 
in opposition to newborn heresies, another creed, 
which had its origin in the mother Church at Jeru- 
salem. The Council of Ephesus, the Third Ecu- 
menical, also reaffirmed the Creed of Nicasa and 
forbade the making or using of any other. The 
Fourth Ecumenical, at Chalcedon, had both the 
Nicene and the Constantinopolitan formulas 
brought before it and discussed them at length, 
with the result that the latter was adopted. Now, 
this creed of Constantinople, which Cyril, bishop 
of Jerusalem, presented to the council as his pro- 
fession of faith, and as of ancient authority in the 
mother Church, came to be confused with the Ni- 



Councils and Creeds. 319 

cene Creed, which, it was supposed, was revised 
and reaffirmed, as revised by the Second Council. 
It was, therefore, called either the Nicene or the 
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed . The two creeds 
bore important marks of difference only for that 
age, and a modern reader might pore over them a 
long time and wonder why they are called separate 
creeds. Only a close study of the sharp meta- 
physical controversies of that era will reveal to him 
the magnitude of syllabic alterations. 

It was in the East that the Christological contro- 
versies of the fourth and fifth centuries engaged 
the Church ; and therefore it was in the East that 
the councils were held and the foregoing creeds 
were formed. In the West, however, at the same 
time the theoretical doctrines of the Church were 
likewise taking creedal shape: the result, in the 
course of several centuries, was the "Apostles' 
Creed." 

There is an interesting tradition concerning the 
origin of this honored symbol of the faith to this 
effect. The twelve apostles, being assembled on 
the day of Pentecost, after the ascension, before 
their separation to go into various regions to preach 
the gospel, desired to have a safeguard of the 
unity of their doctrines. Hence, inspired by the 
Holy Ghost, Peter said, "I believe in God the 
Father Almighty"; Andrew continued, "And in 
Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord" ; James the 
elder went on, "Who was conceived by the Holy 
Ghost"; then followed John, "Suffered under 



320 The Church of the Fathers. 

Pontius Pilate " ; Philip, " Descended into hades" ; 
Thomas, " The third day he rose again from the 
dead ' ' ; and so on, till Matthias completed the work 
with the words " life everlasting. Amen." 

This tradition seems to have originated in Spain 
along in the sixth or seventh century. Our pres- 
ent text of the Creed dates probably from about 
A.D. 500, though some alterations were made after 
that time. It did not assume its final form until in 
the eighth century. It had its beginning, how- 
ever, in the apostolic baptismal formula, and its 
growth can be traced, phrase by phrase. Igna- 
tius (A.D. 115) gives all the essential elements of 
it. Aristides (A.D. 125), Irenseus (A.D. 180), 
Tertullian (A.D. 200), Cyprian (A.D. 250), 
Marcellus (A.D. 341), Rufmus (A.D. 390), re- 
veal alike the mutability and the development of 
the Creed, as regards the form of expression and 
the slow addition of items to its contents. As late 
as A.D. 55othe phrase " the communion of saints " 
was added; and "descended into hell" was first 
given by Rufinus. Parminius of Gaul (died 758) 
is the first to give it in its ultimate form. 

While there is much in common between the 
classic creed of the East (the Nicene-Constanti- 
nopolitan) and the classic creed of the West (the 
Apostles'), they each bear the character of the 
different races and influences which produced 
them. 

Another popular formula in the West is the one 
which bears the honored name of Athanasius. But 



Councils and Creeds. 321 

as Athanasius wrote in Greek and the original of 
this was evidently Latin ; as it bears no likeness to 
the Nicene formula which represented the faith of 
Athanasius; as it was never accepted in the East, 
the home of its supposed author; and as it pre- 
supposes the controversies of the fifth century, it 
could not have been written by Athanasius. 

The evidence seems to show that it originated 
out of popular preaching in Gaul in the sixth and 
seventh centuries. In about 670 we find a creed 
like this in that region, attributed to the champion 
of the Nicene formula. Arianism at this time was 
strong in the West, and this symbol of faith was 
formed and recited, probably chanted as a part of 
the liturgical service, in the churches and monas- 
teries. It is called by Dr. Schaff a " dogmatic 
psalm," and by Professor Allen the "creed of a 
liberal Christianity in that distant age." 

Some wise words, about creeds in general, of the 
first-named historian are worthy to be borne in 
mind. "Each symbol," writes Dr. Schaff, "bears 
the impress of its age, the historical situation out 
of which it arose." And again: "They are mile- 
stones and finger-boards in the history of Christian 
doctrine." He also admits that they "may be 
improved by the progressive knowledge of the 
Church." His characterization of a creed as "a 
doctrinal poem written under the inspiration of di- 
vine truth" has the same liberal and wholesome 
tendency. 

St. Vincentius, in that age of creed-making, gave 
21 



322 The Church of the Fathers. 

the Church a safe maxim: " In essentials unity, in 
doubtful things liberty, in all things charity." 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

W. P. Du Boise's " Ecumenical Councils," in "Ten Epochs of 
Church History, " is a comprehensive single-volume treatise. 

Dr. Schaff' s "Creeds of Christendom " (three volumes, Harper 
and Brothers) is indispensable to one who would make a thor- 
ough study. 



GREGORY THE GREAT— CONCLUSION. 



CHAPTER XV. 

GREGORY THE GREAT— CONCLUSION. 



"The government of souls is the art of arts." — Pasteral 
Care. 

In great epochs of history some one man, or 
group of men, will usually be found to have gath- 
ered up and incorporated in personal character the 
general trend and potency of ideas that are creat- 
ing a new era for mankind, bringing out of the 
past its various products to perfection and shaping 
out of its converged forces new lines of movement 
and new organs of work for the future. Such a 
man was Pope Gregory, called the Great. The 
son of a noble Roman family of senatorial rank, 
he was heir to Roman strength and dignity of char- 
acter and Roman ability for government. Thor- 
oughly educated in the arts and sciences then 
taught, and trained to the law, he was appointed 
by Justinian II. -praetor urbanus at the unusually 
early age of thirty years. 

Born some ten years after Benedict of Nursia 
had founded his monastic order, after the death of 
his father he displayed a strong bent for a religious 
and austere life, and betook himself to the monas- 
tery. But from his cell, where his fastings were 
so extreme as to endanger his life, he was sum- 

(325) 



326 The Church of the Fathers. 

moned by the pope to go as his ambassador to 
the imperial court at Constantinople. Remaining 
there in this high official capacity seven years, he 
gained that knowledge of the governmental affairs 
of the empire, and that acquaintance in particular 
with Eastern customs and ambitions, which served 
him well in later years. On returning to Rome he 
reentered the monastery, probably about the year 
585. He records the five years following, spent in 
the cell, as the most peaceful and happy of his life. 
But he was again to be called forth to active en- 
gagements. On the death of Pelagius II., in 590, 
both people and clergy of Rome clamored for 
Gregory as pope. He besought the emperor not 
to confirm the election; he endeavored to escape, 
setting out to Britain to preach to the fair-faced 
Angles, of whom he had seen slaves in the mar- 
ket place; but his efforts proved futile. Before 
his confirmation he summoned the people to re- 
pentance and to an earnest seeking of God's favor 
upon the city and the empire. Organizing seven 
companies of the people — clergy, laymen, monks, 
nuns, widows, married women, and children and 
paupers — he thus instituted what was called the 
Septiform Litany; and these companies, setting 
out from different churches, marched through va- 
rious streets to a common meeting place — the ba- 
silica of St. Peter, on the Vatican — chanting the 
litany. Legend adds that then the vision of an 
angel, sheathing his sword above the statue of 
Hadrian, appeared to Gregory in token that the 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 327 

plague then afflicting the city was stayed; which 
miracle is commemorated by the Castle of St. An- 
gelo. 

Gregory maintained the same character and 
manner of life in the episcopal chair that he had 
exhibited in the monkish cell. With him, indeed, 
as has been said, monasticism ascended the papal 
throne. He displayed equal zeal for private ascet- 
ic living, whereby he might live close to God, and 
for public activity, whereby he might make the 
Church in all things supreme. A beautiful sen- 
tence in that excellent book of his — still worthy to 
be a preacher's manual — the " Pastoral Care," sets 
forth the golden mean to be observed in the reli- 
gious life : " He, then, who so pants after the beauty 
of his Maker as to neglect the care of his neigh- 
bors, or so attends to the care of his neighbors as 
to grow languid in divine love, whichever of these 
two things it may be tjiat he neglects, knows not 
what it is to have twice-dyed scarlet in the adorn- 
ment of his ephod." 

We have seen how Leo the Great asserted his 
right, as the heir of St. Peter, to rule over various 
distant provinces, and exercised that authority al- 
most with imperial haughtiness. In the one hun- 
dred and fifty years between these eminent rulers 
of the Church a continual increase of power had 
been gained by Rome, until now, conditions great- 
ly favoring, Gregory converted that papal stool 
into an imperial throne. 

Another barbarian invasion had occurred — that 



328 The Church of the Fathers. 

of the Lombards under Alboin, in 568; and there- 
after one invasion followed another, spreading 
over the entire peninsula. The seat of empire 
since Constantine's time had been in the East, and 
an exarch at Ravenna had ruled the West. But 
now this government by the Church had become 
exceedingly weak, being unable to defend the 
country. This was the Roman bishop's opportu- 
nity. The city looked to him in all matters, and 
he assumed entire contol of temporal as of spirit- 
ual affairs. 

To begin with, Gregory's own ancestral estates 
were large in various districts of Italy and Sicily. 
He administered some of these as property of the 
Church, others he bestowed upon monasteries. 
But the whole realm was now governed by him as 
of necessity the protector of the people, the ad- 
ministrator of justice, the feeder of the poor, the 
sole defense against the Lombards, with whose 
kings he made terms which saved the city. 

The divers forms of Gregory's extraordinary 
activity may be stated briefly, while a volume 
would be required to do full justice to their merits. 
In the lirst place, he exalted the sacerdotal power 
of the Church far beyond what it had been. From 
his time, and because of his influence, the priest- 
hood had a larger measure of authority, not only 
in the Church, but in the empire. Secondly, he 
raised the power of the papacy to all but abso- 
lute sway. Over all provinces, East and West, as 
bishop of Rome, the " servant of servants," he 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 329 

exercised commanding authority. Thirdly, he en- 
riched the literature, the ritual, and the service of 
the whole Church. The Roman Ordinal is his 
creation. He introduced a new mode of chanting 
— that is, the "Gregorian Chant" — richer than 
the Ambrosian; he instituted a school of choris- 
ters, and trained them, to accompany the mis- 
sionaries whom he sent out into the regions of the 
North. Fourthly, as a converter both of heathens 
and of heretics, especially the barbarians in Gaul, 
England, and German)', and the numerous tribes 
that had accepted Arianism, his service marked an 
epoch. The authority of the Church, which had 
been increasing for generations, now came to be 
supreme in all the affairs of men — temporal, intel- 
lectual, and spiritual. Fifthly, as virtual sovereign 
of Rome he exhibited the same high efficiency 
which characterized him as an administrator of 
his own large estates, and as the ruler of the 
Church in its diverse regions. 

The first period of Christian history of six hun- 
dred years was consummated, and the second of 
nearly one thousand years, known as the Middle 
Ages, was inaugurated by the papal reign of Grego- 
ry the Great. A passage of some length from the 
classic "Pastoral Care" will worthily conclude 
our brief account of his life, character, and work. 
If for "prelate" the reader will appropriately sub- 
stitute "preacher," he will have a characteriza- 
tion as true and noble as any age or writer has to 
offer: "The conduct of the prelate ought so far 



33° The Church of the Fathers. 

to transcend the conduct of the people as the life 
of a shepherd is wont to exalt him above the flock. 
For one whose estimation is such that the people 
are called his flock is bound anxiously to consider 
what great necessity is laid upon him to maintain 
rectitude. It is necessary, then, that in thought 
he should be pure, in action chief; discreet in 
keeping silence, profitable in speech; a near neigh- 
bor to every one in sympathy, exalted above all in 
contemplation; a familiar friend of good livers 
through humility, unbending against the vices of 
evil-doers through zeal for righteousness; not re- 
laxing in his care for what is inward from being 
occupied in outward things, nor neglecting to pro- 
vide for outward things in his solicitude for what 
is inward." 

Gregory was pope from 590 to 604. In his 
Latin epitaph occurs a splendid line which gives 
him credit of having lived according to the clerical 
ideal he had outlined — " Imj)lebatque actu quicquid 
sermone docebat" — which may be translated by 
Chaucer's couplet concerning his village parson, 
of whom he wrote that 

Christes lore, and his apostles twelve 

He taughte, but first he folwede it himselve. 

II. 

The writer would gladly hope that whoever has 
followed him through these pages, because either 
of interest or strong sense of duty, may have been 
struck, now with the simple beauty, now with the 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 331 

great majesty, yet another time with the penetrat- 
ing truth, the lofty reach of thought, or noble eleva- 
tion of passion, which belonged to the many ex- 
cerpts that have been made herein from the writ- 
ings of the Fathers. If there is any splendor in 
this book, it radiates from their thick-sown truths 
shining like so many stars. If it prove to have any 
merit, it will be that of begetting a desire to drink 
further at the sources, to seek inspiration and 
knowledge and wisdom from the Fathers them- 
selves. 

As the authors of Holy Writ spoke the truth 
without any glozing concerning the grand men of 
their elder day — Abraham and Jacob, David and 
Solomon — so, too, it seemed to this writer he 
should write only truth, having sufficient apprecia- 
tion of the loftiness of life and aim and general 
purity of spirit of these great men and good of our 
elder time, that he thought the whole truth might 
be told. He has trusted also that the reader has 
sensibly kept in mind that we have this treasure of 
heavenly truth in earthen vessels. 

Both the inward and the outward consolidation 
of the Church was now accomplished. Her doc- 
trines were defined and clearly stated, her creeds 
were formulated and confirmed by many councils. 
She knew, and the world knew, what Christianity, 
as a system of beliefs, as a theology, stood for and 
preached. We may now rebel at the strictness of 
the molds into which such vast and indefinable 
truths were compressed; but, for that age, defi- 



33 2 The Church of the Fathers. 

niteness, compactness, positiveness, were demand- 
ed. There was a deeper wisdom at work in this 
formulative process than appears, except to the 
student who deeply considers the conditions and 
requirements of the times. That age must not be 
judged by our own. We advance toward greater 
freedom ; we are ever coming under the sway of 
higher purposes and purer motives. 

The outward organization of the Church was 
likewise now practically complete; and the firm- 
ness and rigor of her system of discipline and gov- 
ernment, prescription of duties and offices, grada- 
tion of the hierarchy, definition of sacraments, and 
invention of imposing ceremonies, find an equal 
justification in our minds when we consider the 
mission of the Church and the character of the 
peoples she was called upon to civilize, to reduce 
to order, to teach to obey, and to educate in the 
Christian virtues. Herein was, to a now almost 
inconceivable extent, a source of power and im- 
pressiveness. 

We learn from history how to judge rightly, in 
any particular epoch, of the degree of liberty that 
is safe, or of absolutism that is just; and whether 
full toleration was always to be allowed, or some 
enforcement of conformity was required by the ex- 
igencies of the special time. On these matters 
some reflections seem appropriate at this place. 
In ancient times, it is first to be remarked, the 
union of Church and State, the close and vital 
connection of religion and politics, made freedom 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 333 

of thought a social danger far greater than is easy 
for us to conceive. Toleration in any government 
of antiquity was a memorable, because an extreme- 
ly rare, thing. Intolerance was a policy universally 
necessitated by the religio-political constitution of 
society. A religious heretic was a political enemy, 
a foe to society deserving of banishment or death. 
Even as late as the era of the Reformation of the 
sixteenth and seventeenth Christian centuries, in 
Germany, in Switzerland, in France, in England, 
heretics were punished, tortured, imprisoned, 
drowned, and burned, according to this theory of 
Church and State. 

The republics of Greece, so often held up for 
our admiration — and justly too — were, on princi- 
ple, intolerant of new doctrines of the gods, and 
persecuted heretics. While an admirable liberty 
in philosophical or scientific thought was permit- 
ted, an attack, open or concealed, upon the gods 
as popularly conceived, scoffing at the ceremonies 
of religion, the dissemination of skeptical notions 
— this was vigilantly repressed by the civil govern- 
ment, and offenders were punished with varying 
degrees of severity. Socrates was but one of 
many sages who suffered as teachers of new and 
dangerous doctrines. The most serious crimes 
were infractions of religious legislation, and death 
was the penalty of impiety. 

It was in the Eastern, or Hellenic, Church that 
theology first arose, that heresies sprang up, that 
great controversies earliest raged, that, finalfy, 



334 The Church of the Fathers. 

creeds and rigid statements of doctrine — dogmas 
— were formulated and orthodoxy was defined. 
Thus the young Church proved herself the heir 
to the Greek modes of thought. The Greek race 
attached supreme importance to right thinking 
(o/o0o8ofta, orthodoxy), and dealt vigorously with 
all heresy (a?peo-is). It is significant that this class 
of words are of Hellenic origin. 

Rome, on the other hand, required an equally 
strict outward conformity. Thought was the first 
concern of Greece; action was the first concern 
of Rome. Hence to the latter fell the task of cre- 
ating institutions which should embody and express 
Greek ideas and doctrines, and of perfecting an 
organization and of developing a system of disci- 
pline and a propaganda which are the most mar- 
velous achievement in history. 

Toleration, therefore, neither in the East nor in 
the West, neither in thought nor in action, could 
be found in the states of antiquity nor in their heir, 
the Christian Church. 

Some of the teachings of this history may be 
gathered up into a few concluding paragraphs. 
If the reader has discerned the force and supreme 
value of personality in the making of history, he 
has acquired a truth of the highest importance. 
This book has been made largely biographical be- 
cause of the extent of individual influence in shap- 
ing institutions and in determining epochs and 
events. The fact of popular movements and deep 
general undercurrents has not been overlooked; 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 335 

but at least some man born of and for the time 
sums all up in himself, adds a personal element, 
and gives living reality and perpetuity, in the form 
of an institution or organization, to what before 
was a mass of chaotic ideas or mere blind feelings. 
Again, the power of Christianity as a system of 
truth, and as itself the embodiment of a Life, will 
impress itself on the mind, along with the fact of 
the strength and marvelous endurance of the Church 
as the visible institution of Christianity. The per- 
petual need of moral heroism and of boldness both 
of thought and action will be an inevitable infer- 
ence, since every victory was gained through sac- 
rifice and every position won and held at the cost 
of life. 

Other lessons it is well to look for, and to re- 
member when learned, namely, that extreme or- 
thodoxy becomes heterodoxy; that overstrictness 
drives to revolt; that truth is seldom or never the 
exclusive possession of one party, and error the ex- 
clusive portion of the other ; that progress changes 
beliefs and practices, once serviceable and edu- 
cative, into superstitions and obstacles to further 
advance ; and that, finally, we must strive to make 
the same advance for our generation that the true 
heroes of the faith, " the men of light and leading," 
in other generations made for theirs. 

The inculcation of a liberal and charitable atti- 
tude toward all men who differ in doctrine from 
ourselves, and the broadening of our minds to a 
larger appreciation of the many sides of truth and 



336 The Church of the Fathers. 

the many modes of its expression, should be a chief 
result of this study. The heretics of yesterday 
have not seldom been the prophets of to-day, and 
we ''gather up their ashes into History's golden 
urn." 

The profoundly significant saying of Tertullian 
is worthy of being kept in mind: " Our Lord 
Christ has surnamed himself Truth, not Custom. 
. . . Whatever savors of opposition to truth, this 
will be heresy, even though it be ancient custom." 
And Cyprian well says to the same effect: "For 
custom without truth is the antiquity of error." 
Our own poet-prophet, Lowell, has given us a true 
watchword : 

New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good un- 
couth: 

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 
of truth. 

No man, nobody of men, no generation of men, 
were ever yet able to grasp the whole and final 
truth itself, but were able only to have insights, 
oftener but glimpses, of some aspects and features 
of the reflected image. The study of Church his- 
tory must tend to make all true men humble, free 
from bitterness in necessary disputes, patient and 
charitable one with another in all divergencies of 
thought and practice. Christ rebuked his over- 
zealous disciples when they related to him their 
having forbidden others, who were not of them- 
selves, to cast out devils and to teach in his name. 

Furthermore, while truth is ever the same, men's 



Gregory the Great — Conclusion. 337 

perception of truth is forever changing and, we be- 
lieve, enlarging. What suffices for one genera- 
tion, new enlightenment may make practically false 
for another. It is now universally discerned that 
revelation in Holy Writ was progressive — God suit- 
ing his thought to the minds of men ; far clearer 
is the fact that discovery is progressive, and that 
we advance by slow and painful stages toward 
more perfect knowledge. And to all honest minds 
it appears as an indisputable fact that every new 
advance, every new idea, every reform, has been 
opposed by good men — by good men far more 
strenuously and successfully than by evil men — 
good and wise, but in both qualities human and 
imperfect. The great conflicts of history have 
never been between wholly wicked men and evil 
doctrines on the one side, and wholly good men 
and true doctrines on the other side. It is the rea- 
sonable part of the student, if he would gather 
from human history its full results, to seek to un- 
derstand and to judge justly all men, both in the 
past and in the present, whether called heretic or 
saint; and to comprehend what of truth there is, 
or was, in every cause and every creed, and what 
of worth in every institution and every doctrine. 

Finally, the words of Irenaeus, spoken in the 
second century concerning the supreme posses- 
sion of the world, should fill every Christian with 
a feeling of praise and a sense of personal respon- 
sibility — praise for what he has received from the 
ages past, responsibility to transmit this gift to 
22 



338 The Church of the Fathers. 

generations following: " The Church," he says, 
"though dispersed throughout the whole world, 
even to the ends of the earth, has received from 
the apostles and their disciples this faith." 

L'ENVOI. 

One holy Church of God appears 

Through every age and race, 
Unwasted by the lapse of years, 

Unchanged by changing place. 

From oldest time, on farthest shores, 

Beneath the pine or palm, 
One unseen Presence she adores, 

With silence or with psalm. 

Her priests are all God's faithful sons, 

To serve the world raised up; 
The pure in heart her baptized ones, 

Love, her communion cup. 

The Truth is her prophetic gift, 

The Soul her sacred page; 
And feet on Mercy's errand swift 

Do make her pilgrimage. 

— Samuel Longfellow, 



APPENDIX I. 



CHIEF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS. 
I. Ante-Nicene Period. 



Authors. 


Writings. 


Approximate 
Dates. 


/. Apostolic Fathers. 






Clement, Bishop of 


First Epistle to the Corin- 




Rome. 


thians 


A. D. 88- 97. 
107-116. 


Ignatius, Bishop of 


Seven Epistles 


Antioch. 






Polycarp, Bishop of 


Epistles to the Philip- 




Smyrna.; 
Barnabas. 


pians. 


116. 


Epistle 


70-130- 

100-140. 


Hermas. 


Shepherd of Hermas 


Papias, Bishop of Hi- 


Expositions of Oracles of 




erapolis in Phrygia. 


the Lord (only a few 






fragments extant) 


120-163. 


Unknown. 


Epistle to Diognetus .... 
Didache, or the Teaching 


100-140. 




of the Apostles 


IOO. 




Second Epistle of Clement 






(so called) to the Co- 






rinthians , 


120-140. 


II Apologists of the 




Second Century. 






Justin Martyr. 


Apology L; Apology II.; 






Dialogue with Trypho . 


138-165 


Tatian. 


Address to the Greeks.. . 


170. 


Athenagoras. 


Embassy (or Plea) for 
Christians; On the 






Resurrection 


170-180 


Theophilus, Bishop of 


Apology Addressed to 




Antioch. 


Autolycus 


169-181 



(339) 



34° 



Appendix I. 



Authors. 


Writings. 


Approximate 
Dates. 


Quadratus. 


Only Quotations in Eu- 
sebius Extant 


1 1 7-138. 
I 17-138. 


Aristides. 


Apoloery 


Melito. 


Fragments 


160-180. 


Apollinaris. 
Miltiades. 


Fragments 




Fragments 




III. Greek Writers of 

Alexandria. 
Clement. 


Exhortation; Instructor; 
Stromata, or Miscel- 
lanies; On the Rich 
Man 


190-220. 


Origen. 


De Principiis; Against 
Celsus; Commentaries 
on the Old and New 
Testaments 


185-254. 


Dionysius, Bishop of 

Alexandria. 

IV. Other Greek 

Writers. 

Gregory Thaumatur- 

gus, Bishop of Neo- 

Caesarea. 
Methodius, Bishop of 

Tyre. 

V. Writers of Greek An- 
tecedents or Culture in 

the Latin Church, 
Irenaeus, Bishop of 

Lyons. 
Hippolytus, Bishop of 

Portus Romanus. 


Important Fragments 

Declaration of Faith .... 

Symposium; Eulogy on 
Origen ; Banquet of 
the Virgins, etc 

Five Books Against Here- 
sies. 


248-264. 
210-270. 

295-3 11 - 
130-202. 


Philosophumena; Christ 
and Antichrist ; Against 
Noetus, etc 


200-236. 


VI. Latin Writers. 
Tertullian. 


Works Voluminous ' 


160-230. 



Appendix J. 



34* 



Authors. 

Minucius Felix. 
Cyprian, Bishop of 
Carthage. 

Novatian. 

Arnobius. 

Lactantius. 



Writings. 

Octavius 

Epistles; Treatise on the 
Unity of the Church, 
etc 

The Trinity; Jewish 
Meats 

Disputations Against the 
Pagans 

Divine Institutes; Anger 
of God; Work of God; 
Manner in which the 
Persecutors Died 



Approximate 
Dates. 

160-230. 

249-258. 
250-260. 
295-305. 

250-230. 



II. NlCENK AND PoST-NlCENE PERIOD. 



Authors. 


Writings. 


Approximate 
Dates. 


/. Greek. 






Eusebius of Csesarea. 


Ecclesiastical History... 


265-340. 


Athanasius. 


Against the Heathen; On 
the Incarnation; On 
the Council of Nicaea, 






etc 


296-373. 


Basil. 


Homilies on the Hexaem- 




eron, etc. ; Against 






Eunomius; On the 






Holy Spirit; Ethics. . . 


329-379. 


Gregory Nazianzen. 


Orations and Sermons.. . 


330-390. 


Gregory of Nyssa. 


Book on the Hexsemeron ; 
On the Formation of 
Man; Catechetical 
Oration; On General 
Notions; Against Eu- 
nomius; Against Ap- 






pollinaris 


334-395. 
f *I 5-386. 


Cyril of Jerusalem. 


Catechetical Discourses. 



342 



Afflendix I. 



Authors. 


Writings. 


Approximate 
Dates. 


Epiphanius. 


Against Heresies 


3 1 5^493- 


Cyril of Alexandria. 


Against Nestorius; Com- 
mentaries on the Old 






and New Testaments. 


444. 


Chrysostom. 


Homilies and Commenta- 






ries 


347-407. 


Theodore of Mopsues- 


Commentaries on the 


tia. 


Minor Prophets, etc.. . 


350-428. 


Theodoret. 


Healing of the Heathen 
Affections; Dialogues; 
Heretical Fables ; Com- 
mentaries; Ecclesiasti- 






cal History 


386-458. 
-440. 


Socrates. 


Ecclesiastical History . . . 


Sozomen. 


Ecclesiastical History . . . 


375-444. 


Evagrius. 


Ecclesiastical History . . . 


431-594- 


//. Latin. 






Hilary of Poitiers. 


On the Psalms; On the 


368. 




Trinity 


380-397. 


Ambrose. 


Treatises on the Hexseme- 




ron and Other Old 






Testament Themes; 






On Mysteries; On 






Sacraments*. On the 






Holy Spirit; Exposi- 






tion of Psalms; Duties 






of the Clergy ; Eremit- 






ic History; Ecclesias- 






tical History ; Apology 






for His Own Faith; Ex- 






position of the Symbol . 


345-4 I o- 


Jerome. 


Lives of Illustrious Men; 
Commentaries; Trans- 






lation of the Bible .... 


340-420. 


Augustine. 


City of God ; Confessions ; 
Enchiridion; On the 





Appendix I. 



343 



Authors. 


Writings. 


Approximate 
Dates. 




Trinity; On the Spirit 
and the Letter; On 






Nature and Grace; On 






Marriage and Concu- 
piscence; On the Soul 






and Its Origin; On 






Grace and Free Will: 






On Predestination of 






Saints; On the Gift of 






Perseverance; Against 
Julian; Reply to Faus- 
tus, the Manichsean; 






Anti-Donatist Writ- 






ings; Tractates on the 






Gospel of John; Expo- 
sition of the Psalms; 






Retractions; Numer- 






ous Sermons and Epis- 






tles 


354-430- 


John Cassianus. 


Colloquies; On the In- 


Vincentius. 


carnation; Institutes.. 
Commonitorium 


360-450. 

-434- 


Prosper of Aquitaine. 


R esponses for Augustine ; 
On the Grace of God 
and Free Will; Car- 




Gregory the Great. 


men de Ingratis 

Pastoral Care; Book of 
Morals, or Exposition 
of the Book of Job; 
Homilies on Ezekiel 
and the Gospels; Dia- 


455-4 6 3- 




logues ; Epistles 


540-604. 



Note. — l large body of apocryphal gospels and acts of apos- 
tles, hagiography, liturgies, apocalypses, constitutions, canons, 
and decrees, etc.,, grew up during the period. The library of 



344 Appendix I. 

the Fathers cpntains the most important works, genuine and 
spurious, of all this time. The writings of Dionysius " the 
Areopagite," dating probably in the fifth century, were a char- 
acteristic and very important product of the time. (See Alleys 
"Christian Institutions.") 

This table is based upon tables in Sheldon's " History of 
Christian Doctrine," revised according to Stearns's " Manual." 



APPENDIX II. 



TABLE OF EMPERORS. 1 

The Rulers of the Eastern and Western Empires, the 

Holy Roman Empire, and the Gothic Kingdom 

in Italy. 



Octavianus Augustus. .B.C. 30 
-A.D. 14 

Tiberius 14- 37 

Gaius Caligula 37- 41 

Claudius 41-54 

Nero 54- 68 

Galba 68-69 

Otho January 69 

Vitellius April 69 

Vespasian 69- 79 

Titus 79-8i 

Domitian . . 81- 96 

Nerva 96- 98 

Trajan 98-117 

Hadrian 117-138 

Antoninus Pius 138-161 

Marcus Aurelius 161-180 

Commodus 180-192 

Pertinax 193 

Septimius Severus . . . 193-211 

Caracalla 211-117 

Macrinus 217-218 



Elagabalus 

Alexander Severus. . . 
Maximin, the Thra- 

cian 

The two Gordians 

Balbinus and Pupienus 

(and Gordian) 

Gordian 

Philip, the Arab 

Decius , 

Gallus 

Valerian 

Gallienus 

M. Aurelius Claudius. 
Quintillus proclaimed 

emperor by the 

troops at Aquileia. . 

Aurelian 

Tacitus , 

Probus 

Carus 

Diocletian 



218-222 
222-235 

235-238 
238 

238 

238-244 

244-249 

250-253 

251-253 

253-260 

260-268 

268-270 



270 
270-275 

275-276 

276-282 
282-284 
284 



Diocletian's Plan of Empire. 

Diocletian in the East, 284-305. Galerius Maximianus be- 
comes Caesar, 293; becomes Augustus, 305. 

1 Taken and adapted, by permission, from Dr. Stearns's "Manual of 
Patrology." 

(345) 



346 Appendix II. 

Maximianus Herculius, 286-305. Constantius Chlorus be- 
comes Caesar, 305; becomes Augustus, 305. 

Galerius in the East, 305-311. Maximinus Daza becomes 
Caesar, 305; assumed title of Augustus, 307 (?). 

Constantius, 305-306. Valerius Severus, son of Galerius, 
becomes Caesar, 305; proclaimed Augustus by Galerius, 306. 

Maximinus Daza in the East, 307. Severus in the West, 
306-307. 

306. Constantius, dying, appoints his son Constantine as his 
successor. Constantine appointed Caesar by Galerius; saluted 
as emperor by the soldiers. Maxentius, son of Maximianus 
Herculius, proclaimed emperor at Rome; supported by Her- 
culius. 

307. Severus put to death at Ravenna by order of Maxen- 
tius. Licinius appointed Caesar by Galerius, Herculius assent- 
ing. 

311. Treaty between Maximinus Daza and Licinius; be- 
tween Licinius and Constantine. 

312. Battle of Milvian Bridge: d. of Maxentius; Constan- 
tine Emperor in the West. 

313. Battle of Heracleia: defeat of Maximinus Daza (d. 314) 
by Licinius. 

315. War between Constantine and Licinius, in which the 
former is victorious, receiving from Licinius Greece, Macedo- 
nia, and part of the lower Danube valley. 

223. Battles of Hadrianople and Chrycopolis; d. of Licinius. 
Constantine Emperor of the Roman world. 



Constantine I., the 

Great . , 323-337 

Constantine II 337"3 61 

Julian the Apostate . . 361-363 



Jovian 363-364 

Valentinian 1 364 

Associates his brother 
Valens with himself. 



Double Headship. 



West. 

Valentinian 1 364-375 

Gratian and Valen- 
tinian II 375-3 8 3 

Valentinian II 383~39 2 

Theodosius L, the Great 392-395 

(The last emperor of the whole Roman world.; 



East. 
Valens 364-378 

Theodosius 1 39 2 ~395 



Appendix II. 



West. 

Honorius 395-423 

John (the usurper) 423-425 

Valentinian II 425-455 

Petronius Maximus . . 455 

Avitus 455-45 6 

Majorian 457-461 

Severus III 461-467 

Anthemius 467-472 

Olybrius 472 

Gljcerius 473 

Julius Nepos 474 

Romulus Augustulus. 476 



Odoacer, the Herulian 476-493 
Theodoric, Ostrogoth. 493-520 
Amalasuntha and 

Athalaric 520-526 Justin I . 

Athalaric 526-534 Justinian I. 

Theodahad 534~536 

Witiges 53 6 -54° 

Ildibad 540 

Baduila (Totila) 541-552 

Teias (Thilo) 552-553 

Battle of Mons Lac- 
tarius; end of the 
Gothic Empire. 

Exarchate in Italy \ 
(Dates are approximate.) 



East. 

Arcadius 

Theodosius II 

Pulcheria, his sister, 
empress after his 
death; married. 

Marcian 



347 

395-4 08 
408-450 



Leo I., the Thracian. 

Leo II. and Zeno . . . 

Basliscus (usurper). . 
Anastasius I 



450-457 

457-474 
474-491 

477 
491-518 



518-527 
5 2 7-565 



Longinus 567-585 

Smaragdus 585-589 

Romanus 589-597 

Callinicus 597-602 

Smaragdus (again) . . . 602-61 1 



Justin II 

Tiberius II., Constan- 

tine 

Maurice 

Phocas 



565-578 

578-582 
582-602 
602-610 



THE END. 



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